March 27th was my 60th birthday, and I intend on recounting God’s grace in my life.
At the age of 17, I collapsed due to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Because it is one of the world's few untreatable conditions, up until now I have been sick for more than 40 years, without being cured. I have no money for the treatment of the incurable disease, but God uses this disease to discipline me, save me, and renew me.
I suffer from severe disabilities, including pain, swelling, deformity, paralysis, loss of self-care ability, and loss of the use of limbs. Since I fell ill in the early spring of 1980, I have been paralyzed in bed for many years. In the eyes of many people, I am a useless cripple who can’t survive.
However, the Father keeps me alive, without taking my breath away. He gave me a husband, a son, a daughter-in-law, and grandchildren.
In the most difficult days, God chose us who were called by His name with salvation. Our relatives, neighbors, and believers have all given us much help, such as planting seedlings, doing farm work, and sending us some clothes.
During the hardest time, my parents and relatives didn’t forsake me but supported me.
In particular, my second elder sister and their family, who are very kind and charitable, were sent by God to help me with financial and material assistance.
Sixteen years ago, at the age of fifteen, my son went to my sister’s family to learn decoration from his cousin. Even after getting married, he worked there with his wife. My sister and her husband treated them as their own son and daughter-in-law with discipline and love. They also love my grandchildren who were born there.
In poverty and sickness, my Father has comforted me, as I receive care from my husband and welfare subsidies from the government.
When I first got sick, the doctor said that if RA affected my heart, I would die soon. After the marriage, my husband went to ask the doctor how long I could live. “At most two or three years,” the doctor answered. When my son was young, some people said that I would not live to watch him grow up. My husband said, “I didn't expect you to be alive this day. In those years, when I worked outside, I always thought that you would die at home.”
Suffering from severe swelling, pain and deformity due to RA, I was told that the painkillers were indispensable. But God healed me, and so I have not taken painkillers for more than ten years.
More than 20 years ago, God started to use my home as a gathering place, as a hymn said that from the worst days to today, everything is the grace of God.
On my 60th birthday, a female believer surnamed Zhou brought me some eggs laid by her own chicken, saying “I couldn't eat them up, so I take them to you.” Another Christian woman with the surname of Zheng sent me an old hen that was just killed and cleaned. I said that I would buy it myself if I wanted to eat it. She insisted on giving it to me.
It's amazing as they don't even know that that day was my birthday, but the Father knows because He is an omniscient God.
- Translated by Abigail Wu
