Forgiveness Progressive
On the night when I cut my wrists at the age of fourteen and a half, two forces were fighting in my heart. Satan and his henchmen kept urging me to join their ranks of defeat. I don’t know where the belief came from, but slowly rose from the bottom of my heart: "Do you really know where you are going after doing this?" It was that voice. , stopped my further fatal actions...
family breach
Since when, because of the estrangement between my mother and my father, because of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law issues between my mother and my grandmother, and because of my mother’s over-discipline caused by her emotional disorder, my young mind has long been cast a thick shadow. The handsome face often reveals unreasonable fear, fearing that he will make a mistake at any time, his heart is full of gray thoughts, and he dare not say anything.
This is why, as the years went by and I was sent to a private middle school that only focused on further education and cramming education, one day in the third year of junior high school, I tried to commit suicide by slitting my wrists for a reason that now seems absurd and unruly. No one knows the true suffering in my heart, and no one knows that the struggle between me and my mother is so great that it is about to destroy me.
In my freshman year of high school, I wore the green uniform that everyone envied and lived a seemingly high-spirited life. For an art class assignment, I bought six packs of paper clay at my own expense and sculpted a giant monster head. Somehow, that ugly face turned out to be so reasonable and natural in the overly calm shaping. I was alone in my small bedroom, trying to get rid of the demon of hatred in my heart. Outside the room, there was still the silent antagonism and endless indifference between my parents. From the outside, my future looks bright, but even I don't know how much trouble all this entanglement will cause in my life.
the flame of the gospel
If it weren’t for God’s mercy, how could we climb out of all this confusion?
My grandmother passed away in a car accident when I was a freshman in high school. Her death has become an eternal mystery in my heart. She is a humble Christian who loves the Lord. She doesn’t often interact with her because her grandmother rejects the church, but my grandmother always touches me with her warm hands whenever I can remember it. Those hands were full of wrinkles, but they were skillful hands that worked hard at housework and took care of our needs. I once held my grandma’s hand quietly, fearing that I would forget and stay away from the tenderness accidentally. I vowed to be like her one day, a quiet, loving, mature woman.
I would rather choose my grandmother’s wisdom than my mother’s young marriage. I went to church several times during my childhood, and finally declared on my own that I wanted to believe in the Lord. But in an environment that focuses on folk beliefs and ancestor worship, even if there is an opportunity, the flame of the gospel is so easily suffocated. I pray to the Lord every night, and my little heart quietly prays for the Lord’s salvation to come.
I had a dream one night, and I no longer dared to long for the supernatural - I really dreamed of the Lord Jesus! However, before my disbelieving heart could overflow with joy, Satan immediately intercepted the dream and threatened me: "How could someone like you dream about Jesus? What you dreamed about might be a ghost. magic!"
From then on, the seeds of the gospel that had finally sprouted were eventually snuffed out in families that did not believe in the Lord. And because of my complete loss of confidence, my mother's problems remained the same, and I began the process of secularization and degeneration. There is still a beautiful corner deep in my heart that treasures the image of my grandmother as a devout Christian, the indelible warm memory, and more deeply, the vague warmth and respect I feel when I go to children’s Sunday school, but it always seems that A cold voice roared in my ear: "Don't think about it, none of that belongs to you!" Sadness was the first ten years of my life.
cycle of depravity
After that, my life began to move closer to the world. My mother loved to read girls’ comics. In the fourth grade of elementary school, she rented the first set of comics to me because she wanted to read them herself. But this reading was the beginning of my exposure to all kinds of chaotic values in my teenage years. My mother was superstitious about zodiac signs and she is still interested in them. I was also influenced by this and thought it was about exploring myself. I even started playing Tarot cards. Once I tried white magic for the first time, and the power in the room was instantly cut off. I experienced the real existence of dark forces for the first time.
During that confusing period, I accumulated too much resentment. My life was filled with gold and jade, but it was filled with ruins. I was heading towards a seemingly beautiful road, but my relationship with my mother was tangled in knots. Being admitted to high school as his first choice, which his father was proud of, actually became the trigger for being often scolded by his mother in the future. Why can't the results of my hard work bring about the repair and salvation of relationships, but instead lead to disaster?
The only comfort and balance at that time was the splendid career of the high school honor corps, which made me temporarily hide my hatred for my mother in my heart, like a powder magazine hoarding evil things. I was unaware that the bitterness of hatred was pulling me away. I headed for the abyss of depravity. College is still admitted to the highest capital in people's eyes, but my heart is even more confused and empty. How much help can this external achievement bring to my life?
Difficult relationships have become my fate. How did I know, in my early twenties, that the invisible power of people's hearts has greater influence than the visible ones? The corruption and mistakes in my past life made me not know how to manage my life even if I found a so-called golden husband. The curse of "never being happy" seems to have been lingering since my childhood. Sure enough, the first love that I had been dating for four years was like a river of water. I gave up what I thought was the only true love and began to look for a second love. Disillusionment is the second decade of my life.
The failure of self-rescue
I have loved children since I was a girl. I also participated in a kindergarten in high school and helped some orphans. Fortunately, I came into contact with these orphans. God opened a channel for love to flow through my obscure heart. I deeply sympathized with the suffering of these children. In his giving and caring, I seemed to have caught a lifeline of hope.
After getting married, I still didn’t believe in the Lord and put all my hope in building a beautiful family of my own. Soon I got a baby daughter as I wished, hoping to give her all the love I couldn’t get in childhood. At first, my father was opposed to me giving up a good relationship of four years and getting married in a hurry. He still remembers that I ran away from home in a rage. Like a scene that happened again and again in my childhood dreams, I finally packed my bags and left without looking back.
In the first few years of marriage, my mother hardly came to visit, and I never came home. The only people who depended on each other for life were my husband and children. Growing up, my interpersonal relationships seemed to be good, but I didn’t have many deep friendships, because I was so used to hiding myself. In the end, I always made everyone mistakenly think that everything was fine with me, and then I lived alone in my own miserable world, letting the demon of hatred devour my heart. .
What's even more difficult is that my mother will say some very bitter words even when she sees me breastfeeding her child, as if she is jealous that her granddaughter is loved. At that time, I felt resentful, helpless and confused. It seemed that a curse from a fortune teller had been fulfilled: "I have parents but it seems I have no parents." I didn't want to go home because any words or deeds of my mother would set off the pressure cooker in my heart. Hope to escape far away.
As a young and vigorous person, I continued to live in the arrogance and delusion of self-salvation. I read books on psychology, philosophy of life, or even new century books, and took some expensive workshops. I thought that my mother’s problems were due to her generation. A woman's sorrow: ignorance and no desire to make progress. I thought I could turn the tide with my own efforts, but all this was like a mantis trying to block a car, all in vain. Failure is the third decade of my life.
god's secret weapon
It wasn’t until I believed in the Lord, and under God’s illumination and salvation, that I finally had the courage to face my pile of bad debts. After I uncovered all my hatred and accepted God’s healing, I had to admit that there was a bottomless pit of love underneath, and in the deepest part of that love, there was God’s mission of placing me in this family.
I am the secret weapon God placed in my home. He imprinted a lingering thought on me as early as when I was born: "I came to this world for a purpose." It is this thought that silently supports me in this world. Even if you go crazy, you can still pursue external success. No matter how Satan releases the smoke and bombs of resentment, because of God’s faithfulness, because He cares about my grandmother’s prayers for our family when she returns to heaven, and because He cares about my third-grade primary school student’s decision to secretly believe in the Lord in my heart, I have passed through the process. After twenty years of suffering, God’s grace came every moment. He pulled me out of the cauldron of hatred and completely saved me.
After slitting my wrists in junior high school, I have to face a fierce battle with death every ten years. There will always be a huge desire to die that urges me. Even my marriage, which seems to be running well, and my husband who loves me... and two lovely daughters are irreparable. Fortunately, in the third decade, God saved me and caused the brokenness and filthiness of the past to die and be buried with Jesus Christ. From that time on, I aspired to have a new life in every move in my life.
The prodigal son returns home
This road of the prodigal's return is difficult and painful. I was officially baptized eight years ago. At the church's New Year's Eve prayer meeting, God called me to completely forgive my mother. I wanted to learn to love the mother who made me gnash my teeth and hate her to the core. . Inspired by the Holy Spirit, she finally wrote a letter asking for her mother's forgiveness, which relieved the guilt in her heart. When she heard about her mother's even more broken childhood, she was surprised by the evil people's deliberate destruction in her mother's family. Firmly rely on the Lord to break these heavy chains.
Progress was slow in the first few years because my mother had already walked away from God and had no desire to return to Him. She was invited to the church every festival, but at first she laughed at her because she was "poisoned by the church." But God’s hand of grace was miraculous. Later, because the doctor declared that my mother had depression, she was re-baptized into the name of the Lord three years later.
However, my mother’s journey to return to God was full of pull and pull. For the first two years, every week I heard all kinds of criticisms about her not wanting to come to church. It was like a world of difference to me who had decided that I should pursue God seriously. I had conversations with and even fought against my mother’s inner demons every week, but the Holy Spirit helped me overcome them time and time again. Only my husband who loves me can understand the torment of this experience.
Satan's attack did not slow down with the passage of time, but instead stole my mother's heart even more. My mother was in a critical condition and sought medical treatment without regular medication. She fainted every now and then, screaming with heartache. She argued endlessly and cursed her father, brother and sister-in-law. My brother even threatened to go to court to testify. One time, I got into an ambulance in the middle of the night and accompanied my mother to the emergency room. I was almost sent to a mental hospital. Many times I cried to my husband that I could no longer do it, but the only motivation God placed in my heart was still the promise and inspiration that “one person is saved, and the whole family is saved” when I believed in the Lord. My family is too heavily bound by Satan, just like me in the past. My father and brother are living too hard. If my mother cannot come out, where is the hope for this family?
There were many times when I was on the verge of collapse and cried to God, why did you give me such a home? Why give me such a mother? But every time after praying heartily before God, my mother’s condition always improved miraculously. Over the years, I almost spent three steps forward and two steps back, but I still want to happily thank and praise God. Although my mother and I stumbled, we no longer sank. Rebirth is the fourth decade of my life.
Forgiveness Progressive
As I embarked on the road of forgiveness, many unbelievable dreams came true. I could listen to my mother with joy and peace. Although I still couldn’t pour out all my thoughts to her because she could no longer bear it, I had the love of Heavenly Father and brothers and sisters in the Lord. It holds me up and makes my heart no longer lonely. In the past six months, God had a wonderful opportunity for my mother to receive counseling and treatment from a Christian social worker in a hospital. They found out some of the root problems of her communication and emotional difficulties. They also helped me learn to accompany my mother in a more appropriate way.
For me, forgiveness is a present-progressive process that begins when the Holy Spirit first empowers me to forgive, followed by a series of responses of faith. Although every step is not easy, every restoration of relationship is a soul-saving work. Please God have mercy on my father and brother who still don’t want to know God, and break the chains of sin. No matter how long it takes for my mother to walk on the road to forgiveness and healing, as long as God doesn’t give up (He will definitely save me), I will walk firmly. Go down. I firmly believe that the loving God will use me as the seed of the gospel to cause our whole family to blossom into flowers of transformation and renewal! This is my heartfelt prayer as we move into our fifth decade.
[Expert response]
antidote to love
Director of Family Relations Ministry/Teachers Guo Yuanpei and Liu Yongling
Whether it is a parent-child relationship, a husband-wife relationship, or a colleague relationship, the greatest conflict and pain in any interpersonal relationship comes from the inability to forgive. There is a very apt metaphor to describe someone who is unwilling to forgive, as if he drinks poison into his belly and expects the other person to be poisoned to death. This is the reason why Jingzi’s testimony was full of suffering and pain before she believed in the Lord. Until God’s salvation came, she was finally able to experience the great changes that forgiveness brought to her and her mother, which made her family of origin see The seemingly unsolvable problems began to have opportunities for change. Ask God to help us have a wise heart and rely on the Lord’s grace to become a person who continues to spread love and forgiveness.
Author profile
Jingzi, from Taiwan, is a writer who was saved by grace. In this life, he is willing to serve God and edify people with his heart and pen.