It is five o'clock in the morning, and I am in my morning prayer. Outside the window, there is a heavenly song of birds, but as I kneel down before the Lord, there is no way I can hold back my tears.
Last night, I accidentally deleted some contents from the C drive of the computer, and the computer would not turn on, so I had to ask Brother Liu to help fix it. At his house, I saw Chenchen, his son, in diapers, smiling and laughing. As Liu's wife's maternity leave was coming to an end, amazingly, she was adjusted to work at home, and Liu was also relatively free at work--they got a perfect time to raise a child!
I remember years ago, in the tiny apartment that Liu rented, Liu played the guitar, and we sat together to sing praises, share our struggles, and pray together.
At that time, the most urgent prayer for us: one was marriage and another was work. Liu had been divorced for many years and was hurt deeply by his previous marriage. He could not get out of the painful shadow for a long time and he vowed to marry a woman with faith in the next marriage.
As for me, at that time I had been working in the paper media industry for almost 20 years, but my company was running at a deficit due to declining profits. My wife had already lost her job, and I was paid minimum wage and facing unemployment as I got older. So two of us who were both down gather every week to sing praises, pray, share, and worship God.
Liu kept going on blind dates, but he was always disappointed. "Even the sisters in Christ fix their eyes on the material and other external criteria." They asked not only for good faith but also a house, a good job, being good-looking, humor...Liu was so upset.
Nevertheless, Liu resolutely resisted the pressure from his family--his elderly father kept going to the "matchmaking corner" in the park to set him up on dates.
One day, Liu asked me to go for a walk in the park, and he showed me a picture on his cell phone; it was a picture of a Christian lady, an ordinary girl. Liu asked beamingly, "Should I go see her in Beijing?" But I knew he had already made up his mind.
My career had also come to an end on that rainy summer in Zhengzhou. As I pushed my old bicycle in the torrential rain, tears and rain pouring down my face, I questioned the Lord, "Father! How long will this go on? I can't take it anymore!"
A few months later, to everyone's surprise, Liu returned from Beijing with the Christian lady, and the two of them got married. A year later, the couple had a baby son, Chenchen.
And when I was ready to become a worker after being laid off, my company asked me to come back. They offered me a position in new media, and my salary was doubled.
Now I know why I could not stop my tears when I prayed this morning!
Through what I have experienced and seen in the past 40 years of being a Christian, I am confident that the Lord will never put us to shame if we trust in Him.
(The article was originally published by the Gospel Times and the author is a Christian in Henan Province.）
- Translated by Joyce Leung
