A male Christian surnamed Wen wrote a letter to a girl who is about to take gaokao, the annual college entrance examination in China, asking her to lower her expectation of the examination, look up to the Lord, and rely on the Lord for peace.
A Christian mother surnamed Ye told another Christian whose first name is Wen that her daughter Beibei could not go home for nearly four months due to the pandemic. In the 12th grade in Henan, the pressure on students is extremely high. She needs to get up at 5 o'clock, goes to bed at 11 o'clock, and keeps solving exam questions every day. Beibei called her and told her about an incident. A boy in her class was taken away by the police as he had a fight with a boy in another class who was stabbed to death with a knife. As the examination is approaching, the students are under great pressure, feeling miserable and depressed.
Wen wrote a letter for this girl, which is also a prayer letter.
Beibei:
I know that you have a solid faith since your childhood as you have learned foreign languages from Paster Lu who has nurtured you and built up your spiritual life. What a blessing!
You have not been studying in the traditional education system for many years, instead, you study at home. Just like the aristocratic education abroad, this helps to keep your optimistic nature and the growth of God's belief in life. Like my child, I still remember that when she went to kindergarten at the age of two and a half, she cried bitterly and was brutally left in a strange environment. Once, when her grandmother went to pick her up, she found that she had defecated herself and could only walk awkwardly, as she was afraid to tell the teacher.
Funny? No, it's pathetic! Sometimes education is like manufacturing one screw after another. It completely obliterates the child's nature and destroys the child's creativity and vitality, like producing standardized factory parts one after another. So, what is the college entrance examination? Will it determine our life?
I'm not advising you not to study hard. My daughter will take the senior high school entrance exam this year, and she also works very hard! But I just want you to take it easy because all these will become the past, but our blessing in the Lord Christ will last forever.
The college entrance examination is just an examination. After that, there are still four long years of college life, and there may be graduate studies.
So, Beibei, take it easy for the examination and relax. As you are at the most "busy" time now when you go to bed at 11 o'clock in the evening, get up at 5 o'clock in the morning. As you spend all your time studying, how can you take it easy?
It is about wisdom. You just need to do your best and lower your expectations with gratitude for the safe passage of every day. By meditating on God's words, you come to the Lord with silent prayer and receive the rest from Christ Jesus.
As for the bloody incident on campus, you can also take it easy. This world is not what we want it to be. We can only manage ourselves to live according to the teaching of the Lord Christ which is loving God and loving others as ourselves.
Beibei, no matter what happens, I believe that when the floods come, the Lord would sit as king. We cannot understand everything but believe in the One who loves us.
We should learn to turn our eyes to the Lord Christ Jesus when we are in trouble. Beibei, entrust your life, study and the upcoming college entrance examination to the Lord. No matter what the result is, it will be extremely good as long as it is the will of the Lord. We just accept it with joy.
- Translated by Oliver Zuo
