God’s Grace Frees Her From Her Painful Marriage (Part 2)
By A’jiao, Hong Kong
God’s Words Resolve Her Bewilderment and Her Heart Is Eased
One time, in a meeting, Jiao told her brothers and sisters all about her pain and bewilderment, and one of the sisters read to her several passages of God’s words: “Born into such a filthy land, man has been severely blighted by society, he has been influenced by feudal ethics, and he has been taught at ‘institutes of higher learning.’ The backward thinking, corrupt morality, mean view on life, despicable philosophy, utterly worthless existence, and depraved lifestyle and customs—all of these things have severely intruded upon man’s heart, and severely undermined and attacked his conscience. As a result, man is ever more distant from God, and ever more opposed to Him” (“To Have an Unchanged Disposition Is to Be in Enmity to God”). “One after another, all these trends carry an evil influence that continually degenerates man, causing them to continually lose conscience, humanity and reason, and that lowers their morals and their quality of character more and more, to the extent that we can even say the majority of people now have no integrity, no humanity, neither do they have any conscience, much less any reason. So what are these trends? You cannot see these trends with the naked eye. When the wind of a trend blows through, perhaps only a small number of people will become the trendsetters. They start off doing this kind of thing, accepting this kind of idea or this kind of perspective. The majority of people, however, in the midst of their unawareness, will still be continually infected, assimilated and attracted by this kind of trend, until they all unknowingly and involuntarily accept it, and are all submerged in and controlled by it. For man who is not of sound body and mind, who never knows what is truth, who cannot tell the difference between positive and negative things, these kinds of trends one after another make them all willingly accept these trends, the life view and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them on how to approach life and the way to live that Satan ‘bestows’ on them. They have not the strength, neither do they have the ability, much less the awareness to resist” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”).
The sister then gave fellowship, saying: “God’s words reveal how Satan corrupts man as well as the truth of our corruption by Satan. In today’s society, the breakup of marriages caused by extra-marital affairs and having someone on the side is a common occurrence, and this is directly related to us being deeply corrupted by Satan. Satan uses all manner of heresies and fallacies to deceive, seduce and corrupt man, such as ‘Seize the day for pleasure, for life is short,’ ‘The red flag at home does not fall, the colored flags outside flutter in the breeze,’ ‘Men go bad when they get money, and women get money when they go bad,’ and so on. Satan arouses these evil thoughts and views to corrode our spirits, and this results in our thinking becoming warped so that we regard the evil trends such as ‘extra-marital affairs,’ ‘having a mistress’ and ‘keeping another woman’ as positive things to pursue. Having a woman on the side has become a symbol that the man is capable and high-powered, and a woman having many paramours has become a reflection of how lovely she is. We as mankind live under the influence of these evil trends, and we become increasingly wicked, promiscuous and corrupt, and our consciences become ever more numb. Even though we do things that fly in the face of ethics and morality, we feel no shame at all. More and more people are becoming assimilated by Satan’s evil trends, and are becoming sacrifices to these trends…. In this way, many families are broken up, many people choose to commit suicide as they cannot bear their partner’s betrayal, and there are also many people who kill their partners because their love turns to hatred. Are these not the bitter fruits of following Satan’s evil trends? Were it not for God expressing the truth and exposing Satan’s cunning scheme to corrupt mankind, no one would be able to see and understand these things. We would just be living under Satan’s power, allowing it to harm us. We really do need God’s salvation, and we really need to understand the truth!”
After listening to God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, Jiao thought of the years that followed her marriage to Ming, when he was very attentive to his family. But because of the seduction of evil trends, Ming had been unable to resist the temptation, he had begun to have extra-marital affairs, had lived in the evil desires and selfish lusts of the flesh and had become more and more degenerate. He had become completely heedless of her feelings or their son’s feelings, he had lost his conscience and reason and brought his family nothing but pain. Jiao understood that her marriage had arrived at where it was today because of the harm caused by Satan’s evil trends, and that both she and Ming were the victims of these trends. Jiao wept. But they were not tears of pain or because she felt wronged. Instead, they were tears of gratitude. She was truly thankful to God for saving her. It was God’s words which had loosed the knots in her heart, and the resentment she felt for Ming began to fall away.
Later, Jiao read a passage of God’s words which said: “People harbor many illusions about marriage before they experience it themselves, and all these illusions are beautiful. Women imagine that their other halves will be Prince Charming, and men imagine that they will marry Snow White. These fantasies go to show that every person has certain requirements for marriage, their own set of demands and standards. Though in this evil age people are constantly bombarded with distorted messages about marriage, which create even more additional requirements and give people all sorts of baggage and strange attitudes, any person who has experienced marriage knows that no matter how one understands it, no matter what one’s attitude toward it is, marriage is not a matter of individual choice” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).
As she contemplated God’s words, she realized that she had been influenced by the endless love between the main male and female characters in romance novels and soap operas, and that she had also been influenced by ideas like “love is supreme,” and “growing old together, hand-in-hand.” She had blindly believed in love, and had regarded marriage and love as the most important things in her life, yet in the end she was deceived, fettered and harmed by these mistaken notions. When Ming was being very caring toward her, she had believed that she had found true love, and had regarded Ming as her trusted refuge for the rest of her life, wishing only that she and Ming would always love each other as husband and wife and grow old together. But when Ming betrayed her and the happy marriage that she had sought was about to be lost, her heart had felt emptied, and she had even stopped caring about her own life and her own child, and had twice decided to take her own life. In order to rescue her marriage, she had endured the pain in her body and spirit, and had given up her integrity and dignity in order to curry favor with Ming…. Had this pain not all been caused by the torment of Satan’s evil trends? Jiao finally understood that the evil trends of “growing old together, hand-in-hand,” and “love is supreme” were just means by which Satan harmed people and hoodwinked them, and that they were cunning schemes by which Satan devoured people—Satan really was so hateful! At the same time, Jiao also felt deeply how sad it was that she had been without the truth and had been unable to see through to the essence of these evil trends, and had been played by Satan. In her pursuit of so-called love, she had almost lost her own life—she had been such a fool! Just then, for the first time, Jiao found the faith and the courage to want to accept the facts of Ming’s betrayal and begin a whole new life.
Understanding the Truth Allows Jiao to Face Up to Things Calmly
Over the days that followed, Ming came home less and less, preferring rather to sleep at work than come home, and Jiao knew that it was time for her to face up to what had become of her marriage. And so, Jiao called Ming on the phone and said calmly, “What do you want to do about our marriage?” Ming said in a cold voice, “Let’s get a divorce.” This time, Jiao did not refuse, but instead she calmly accepted this fact. After they hung up, Jiao thought about the path she had followed to get to where she was. In order to rescue her marriage and in her pursuit of family peace and conjugal happiness, she had lost her dignity, integrity and almost even her own life, all so that she could keep a man who didn’t love her anymore. In the end, not only did she not get the happiness she’d wanted, but instead she had been tormented by Satan so much that she had felt unbearable pain. It was the guidance of God’s words that had enabled Jiao to see the truth of the matter, and it was God who had never abandoned her and who had saved her, one step at a time, from being harmed by Satan. Jiao went before God and said a prayer: “O God! I don’t want to disappoint Your love for me again. This time, I want to take a stand and no longer live bound by Satan. I want to return by Your side and embark upon a new path in life.”
After their divorce was finalized, Jiao felt a little worried. She was not entirely able to move around, after all, and she had her son to look after. But she learned to rely on God and she entrusted her life into God’s hands, and she submitted to God’s sovereignty and arrangements with this matter. Later, Ming took the initiative and gave Jiao enough alimony for her to live. He also gave her the house to carry on living in, and he arranged for someone to look after her and their son. Jiao had never imagined that this would be the outcome, and she knew that it had all happened by the grace of God, and that God had arranged it all for her to dispel the worries in the back of her mind.
In the days that followed, as she lived the church life and fellowshiped God’s words together with her brothers and sisters, Jiao came to understand more truths, and her heart felt ever more liberated. Gradually, she let go of her hatred for Ming. Sometimes Ming would come to see their son, and Jiao was able to be calm and collected toward him. Now, Jiao is performing her duty in the church and has begun a new life. Every time Jiao thinks of the true love and salvation God showed her, her heart feels incredibly moved, and she has come to a deep appreciation of God’s words that say: “Besides God, no one and nothing can save you from the sea of suffering so that you suffer no longer: This is determined by the essence of God. Only God Himself saves you so selflessly, only God is ultimately responsible for your future, for your destiny and for your life, and He arranges all things for you. This is something that nothing created or non-created can achieve” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”). Yes indeed, only God can save man, and only God is saving man! Only God can lead us to understand the truth, to see through Satan’s cunning schemes and be free from Satan’s harm! Jiao thanks God from the bottom of her heart, and has made a resolution to perform her duty well and to repay God’s great love!
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