My mother's life has impressed me with her kindness and patience.
Love. She loved people, loved animals, and loved flowers and plants. During the Agrarian Reform, when fighting local tyrants and dividing the land, my dad was the district head. Mom used to hide the people who were attacked or even those who were sentenced to death. She kept them alive out of “principle." Afterward she didn’t remember the people that she stood up for, but their descendants never forget and think of her with gratitude. Our home was also a "comfort zone" for stray cats and dogs. When it was time for meals, groups of cats would come to find food and stray dogs would also come to have meals for free with their own puppies...
Patience. My father was a communist district governor during the War of Liberation. The Kuomintang authority offered a reward for my father's arrest. But they couldn't catch him. So they put my mom in prison, locking her up for a month. Mom just kept saying "Lord!" and even "Thank the Lord!". She endured everything and said nothing. She was released in the end. During the extreme Cultural Revolution period, due to my "capitalist rightist" father, my mom lived a hard life. Her internal body heat led to her getting acute nephritis, but she endured the pain and didn’t say anything. She still kept referring to the "Lord!", "My God!" and "Jesus!"
Although she could not recite relevant scriptures, nor did she explicitly indicate that this was the result of her faith in Jesus, her words and deeds proved her faith.
This was my Christian mother, and she influenced me deeply. She was critically ill at the age of 84. I was out of town, and when I hurried back, mom had been in a coma for two or three days. I pressed my face to her cheek as before and whispered that I was back. At this moment, my nephew exclaimed, "My grandmother’s eyes are open!" I saw mom slightly open her eyes, and then close them again. My tears began to flow. I know that she was waiting for me...
After my mother rested in the Lord’s embrace, my younger brother and younger sister asked me: "Elder brother, how would you like to remember your mother?" I looked at the Bible she kept by her bed all year round and said to my sister and brother, "Give me mother's Bible. I want nothing else." In this way, I received my first Bible. Although I had not yet been baptized, my mother's faith was still rooted in my heart and influenced me. This Bible, which I left at my desk to read in my spare time, opened the door to my spiritual journey to the Lord. In the days that followed, after I was baptized, I had several versions of the Bible, but this Bible was the most precious spiritual treasure that I owned because it is the one that my mother left me. Sometimes I would put my face on the cover of the Bible, cry, pray, and think of my mother who brought me close to the Lord.
The power of faith is infinite. From childhood to adulthood, we have gone through all kinds of trials and tribulations and peaceful times as well. In good times and in bad times, the grace of the Lord is always with us. Perhaps we cannot see or touch it with our eyes or hands, just as disciples doubt the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the amazing grace of the Lord is always there. With silent grace, care, and protection, the Lord is always in our hearts.
I still remember that when I was in my post before my retirement, the boss of the unit once said to the two middle-level cadres who were in conflict, "Don't talk to me about your conflicts. You should go to President Wu (I am the vice president of the company). He is a Christian and believes in God. He is the fairest person. You shall go and find him." That was the most gratifying thing anyone could say about me. It is not that how excellent I am, but that I do my best to witness to God in my daily words and deeds, to the glory of the Lord.
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
