By Chao Ling

“Ring, ring, ring …”

“Hello! Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Chao Ling, you need to take leave from work today. Your child had a sudden fever, so I brought him to the hospital of the town for an examination. Then the doctor said each of the child’s blood indicators was very poor and that the child’s condition was not good. Moreover, he suggested us to take the child to the People’s Hospital.”

“What? I will be there at once.”

After she who was at work answered this urgent telephone from her mother-in-law, Chao Ling’s mind suddenly went blank. Then she hung up immediately and recklessly hurried to go to the People’s Hospital despite the heavy rain.

Chao Ling was a newborn baby’s mother. She was similar to many other ordinary mothers: She doesn’t ask her child to be rich, but all she asks is that her baby will grow up healthily and happily, will be safe and well all his life. However, on the twentieth of August of 2016 in the morning, she heard the bad news that her several-month-old son had a sudden serious disease. Then she arrived at the People’s Hospital uneasily and got saddened by seeing her son in a coma on his sickbed. In the afternoon, when the result of her child’s examination came out, the doctor told her: “Your child’s disease is very serious. The level of his platelets is so low that it can cause a cerebral hemorrhage easily. His life is at risk any time, so he must be hospitalized right now. When he is in hospital, he needs a kind of drug named γ-globulin. This drug is very expensive and will cost at least more than ten thousand for three days. Then we will observe whether the platelets increase or not. If they are still in a low level, he should have another examination.” Hearing that, Chao Ling saw blackness and then implored the doctor to save her child. She was willing to try even though the treatment would cost more money. As a result, after keeping using they—Globulin for three days, her child’s blood indicators were the same as before. Then the doctor told her that her child maybe had leukemia and advised her to take him to the Children’s Hospital in the city for an examination and diagnosis.

In September of 2016, for the purpose of reaching an accurate diagnosis, Chao Ling and her husband took their son to the Children’s Hospital in the city which is an authority on blood disease. When the child’s result came out, the doctor told them clearly: “The child has Leukemia. He should be hospitalized for chemotherapy, but there’s not much hope of his recovery so you’d better be prepared for this.” The doctor’s words buried deep in Chao Ling’s heart like a sharp knife. At that moment, she was paralyzed, sitting on the ground without one word, let tears roll willfully, and cried out nonstop in her heart: “Who can save my child? Who can save him? …” After she calmed down, her husband discussed with her: “Our son is very young, so he mustn’t bear the pain of chemotherapy. What’s more, the expert has said the hope of our child’s recovery is not much. Hence, why do we have him suffer such pain and torment? We should take him home and accompany him carefully. Let’s wait and see.”

Chao Ling resigned as manager in a hotel in order to look after her son meticulously. However, her son’s health got worse and worse day by day. On the twentieth of September of 2016, her son had a sudden cough and didn’t stop. Thus she and her husband had to take their child to the hospital. After using gamma globulin drugs for several days, her son still had a pale complexion, not eating or drinking, not crying or clamoring, just with a drowsy look. When she saw her son, her heart was bleeding. In the state of helplessness, she had to repeatedly pray to Heaven in the heart: “Oh, Heaven, we indeed have nowhere to go. I beg You to save my child! Please show me a way!” Then her child’s cough improved after he stayed in hospital for more than ten days. However, it was the third day after her son leaving the hospital. Her son began to suffer from vomiting and diarrhea and taking all kinds of antidiarrheal medication would not help. At last, she indeed had no way, and then had to take her child to a traditional Chinese medical hospital. After her son stayed in hospital for a period of time, his belly got better. Yet, as regards the low level of platelets, the doctor still had no way. In the face of her son’s disease, Chao Ling wanted to cry but felt tearless, only saw the disease torment and swallow her son’s young life day by day. Afterward, she was not resigned to give up, so she discussed with her family once again and then decided to take the child to the authoritative hospitals in a big city.

In October of 2016, Chao Ling and her husband took their son to Shanghai Children’s Hospital. Seeing the thick and big needle stuck into her son’s skeleton to take bone marrow, she collapsed thoroughly. She had no control over her grief and cried squatting on the ground. Helplessness, fear and anxiety pressed down on her heart like a huge stone. She constantly prayed Heaven to give her a thread of hope. But what made her despaired was that the diagnostic result was the same: There’s not much hope of her son’s recovery, and he’s just able to stay alive for six months to one year at most. Knowing her child had no hope of living, she looked back to several months for which she had gotten along with him and he had brought her happiness and joy. However, when the disease would take him away, as a mother, she could do nothing, and so her heart was broken.

In the first lunar month of 2017, under God’s marvelous arrangement, Chao Ling was lucky to hear God’s gospel in the last days. When she, in tears, told her son’s disease and her pain in the heart to the aunt who had spread the gospel to her, the aunt comforted her: “Child, don’t worry. Our mankind’s fates are all in God’s hands. Thus only by coming before God can we obtain support and help in our heart. God knows your suffering, He is just by your side, and He also hopes you can come before Him soon, follow and believe in Him to end such painful and helpless days.” The aunt pointed to a passage of God’s words as she spoke, reading it to Chao Ling: “You live like such, with no hope; he exists like such, with no aim. There is only the Holy One in the legend who will come to save those who moan in suffering and long desperately for His arrival. This belief cannot be realized so far in the people who are unconscious. However, the people still yearn for it so. The Almighty has mercy on these people who suffer deeply. At the same time, He is fed up with these people who have no consciousness, because He has to wait too long for the answer from humans. He desires to seek, seek your heart and your spirit. He wants to bring you food and water and to awaken you, so you are no longer thirsty, no longer hungry. When you are weary and when you begin to feel the desolation of this world, do not be perplexed, do not cry. Almighty God, the Watcher, will embrace your arrival any time” (“The Sighing of the Almighty”). God’s words just as a warm feeling rushed into Chao Ling’s heart, which made her pain and sadness buried in her heart for long time burst out in a short time. She burst into tears and sobbed. She thought she was the person who had nowhere to go in the world. She exhausted possible effort because of her son’s illness, but it would not help. She thought if she lost the sole son, she wouldn’t have the courage to survive. Yet, God observed her grief, called for and waited for her by her side, had her come before God and gave her support and comfort. She never thought it was God that lighted the lamp in her heart and illuminated her road ahead when she felt most painful and despaired. Although her child was indeed sick, she felt some peaceful and stable and didn’t feel helpless as before. She was willing to accept God as her Savior and to have Him arrange fates of her and her son.

Before long, Chao Ling and her brothers and sisters lived the church life. Through reading God’s words, she even more knew the authority of God dominating everything. God says: “These things came after man was tempted by Satan and their flesh became degenerate, such as the pain of the flesh, the troubles and emptiness of the flesh and the extreme wretchedness of the world. Satan began to torment man after it had corrupted them. Man then became more and more degenerate, the illnesses of man were deepened, and their suffering became more and more severe. Man felt more and more the emptiness, the tragedy and the inability to go on living of the world, and they felt less and less hope for the world. So this suffering was brought on man by Satan, and it only came after man had been corrupted by Satan and became degenerate” (“The Meaning of God’s Experiencing the Pain of the World”). “Regardless of how ‘powerful’ Satan is, regardless of how audacious and ambitious it is, regardless of how great is its ability to inflict damage, regardless of how wide-ranging are the techniques with which it corrupts and lures man, regardless of how clever are the tricks and schemes with which it intimidates man, regardless of how changeable is the form in which it exists, it has never been able to create a single living thing, has never been able to set down laws or rules for the existence of all things, and has never been able to rule and control any object, whether animate or inanimate. Throughout the vast expanse of the universe, there is not a single person or object that was born from it, or exists because of it; there is not a single person or object that is ruled by it, or controlled by it. On the contrary, it not only has to live under the dominion of God, but, moreover, must obey all of God’s orders and commands. Without God’s permission, it is difficult for Satan to touch even a drop of water or grain of sand upon the land; without God’s permission, Satan is not even free to move the ants about upon the land—let alone mankind, who was created by God” (“God Himself, the Unique I”). From God’s words, she understood: Man’s pain is from Satan. It is Satan that brought pain for man. However, everyone’s life including Satan and evil spirits is in God’s hands. Hence even though they are malicious, cruel and evil, Satan and devils can’t surpass God’s authority and power. They are just a doll in God’s hands so they don’t dare to snatch her son’s life without God’s permission. It is because God is the Master of man’s fate.

God’s words aroused her hope and made her confidently place her son in the hands of God. Her son’s life and death are under God’s control. After two months, it was marvelous that her son’s disease got better and his mental state gradually improved. At the beginning of April of 2017, Chao Ling took her son to the People’s Hospital in the city for an examination. The report of examination showed his blood indicators became normal. The leukemia was cured marvelously. At the moment, she was moved to tears and truly experienced what God says: “The source of life comes from God, for all creation, whatever the difference in form or structure. Whatever kind of living being you are, you cannot move counter to the path of life that God has set. In any case, all I wish is for man to understand that without the care, keeping, and provision of God, man cannot receive all that he was meant to receive, no matter how great the effort or struggle. Without the supply of life from God, man loses the sense of value in living and loses the sense of purpose in life” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life”). Of cause, the son’s life and death are controlled by God. Even whether his condition can improve is not controlled by those authoritative hospitals or experts, but is in God’s hands and dominated by Him. Her son who had been sentenced to death by science was marvelously healed by God. Therefore, science can’t save her son and God is his sole salvation.

Through this experience, Chao Ling not only saw God’s extraordinary authority and power but experienced the warmth of God’s love. She looked back on the scene in the past: When she believed God is the One who dominates man’s fate and determined to follow Him, God stretched out the hand of salvation and healed her son of his fatal disease. It made her truly experience that God is just the One who dominates everything and supplies man’s live.

Now, Chao Ling has followed God for more than four months while her son has grown up day by day under God’s care and protection. Every time when she sings hymns and reads God’s words, her son also babbles following her. Seeing all of that, she truly has experienced that it is a happier thing than anything else that one is accompanied by God’s love on his path of life. She dedicates a deep gratitude and praise to God. All the glory be to Almighty God!