One day in October, I came to a residential community in the suburbs of a city in China's northern Shaanxi Province. Under the guidance of the gatekeeper of the community, and after walking a long and winding road, I finally found Sister Liao. I interviewed her in her apartment on the first floor of an old building.
Sister Liao opened the door, pointed to the inner room, and whispered that her husband had just taken some medicine and was sleeping.
Liao said that she was born in 1943. For the past 77 years, her most memorable days were in the early spring of 1992. In the winter of 1991, the family took a turn for the worse when her breadwinner husband suddenly made a mistake and lost his job. At that time, she had not yet believed in the Lord Jesus, and she did not know how to support her family through faith in the Lord. She was forced out of a temporary job she had held for decades. The neighbors in the yard who used to be particularly nice and thoughtful also began to avoid her. Suddenly she fell into the abyss, feeling abandoned by society...
Liao was born in Babu Town, Hezhou City, Guangxi Province, which is a thousand miles from her present home. There were seven people in her poor family, including her parents, her brothers, and sisters. In those especially hard times, the family had little financial support and lived only on the little money earned by selling vegetables that her father had grown in the mountains. As a young child, sometimes she would be led by her mother to do odd jobs for small business owners to support the family. Most of the time, as a young girl, she followed her mother and helped her to do the hard work of delivering the bowls, woods, and boards. Every time when they did such a job, they had to walk and carry a heavy load for more than ten miles in the mountains. After a whole day's hard work, her mother and she were able to only earn 5 yuan.
Because her family was too poor, she didn’t begin school until she was age nine. She struggled through six years of primary school and then worked her way through two and a half years of secondary school. When she was in school, she raised chickens, ducks, and pigs. The most difficult task was when under the guidance of her teacher she needed to cut firewood in the mountains before dawn every Saturday and Sunday. At that time, she had just turned 17 and was thin for lack of nourishment.
In 1963, at the age of 20, she left her family and got married in a city in the far north. Coming from the south to the north, thousands of miles away, left her in a strange and difficult environment. First, there was the language barrier. She could not communicate very well with the people around her; Second, the different habits and customs were different. She could not adapt to them in a short period of time. The climate in the north is dry, which caused dry eyes, pain in the pharynx, and dry throat. The biggest headache was that as a new wife, she could not prepare a common northern meal for her husband's family.
After many years, Liao gradually adapted to the northern climate and was able to prepare meals according to local customs. She also had a temporary job that paid little, but she was able to support herself and save some money to support the family. No one expected that in 1969 her husband would be regarded as the “stinking ninth category” (intellectuals) and the family was sent to the countryside to reform through labour. They stayed in the countryside for ten years. It was not until 1979, with her husband was exonerated, that the family returned to the city and became residents again. Her husband was able to return to his former position and became the section chief in an organ. She also worked in the shop at the gate of the organ. It seemed that the life of the family was developing in a better direction.
Her husband, the breadwinner of the family, lost his job in 1991, forcing her out of work too. It was the hardest and most difficult year of her life.
That day, when she was sitting at the window with her mind wandering as before, suddenly there was knock on the door. She thought: “No one has visited me for more than half a year. Who would knock on the door of my house?” It was a sister from the church who was in her 50s, similar to her own age. The sister said: “Jesus sent me to find you.” Then she took Liao to a stranger's house in a strange neighborhood. Stepping through the doorway, she saw more than ten people gathered around a round table in the small sitting room. In front of each of them was a thick black book that was open. A young sister was reading out loud. The sister who had brought her there whispered to her: “We are all Christians. We believe in God.” Then she pointed to the picture of Jesus on the wall. . .
After many visits in the following days, she finally realized that this was the meeting place of a church and that the book she was reading was the Bible. On Easter Sunday that year, she was baptized.
After she believed in the Lord, she made many new friends in the church, and the great love of Jesus gradually brought her out of her loneliness.
In 1993, the church established a choir, and she immediately signed up. In the next 28 springs, summers, autumns, and winters that have passed since she joined the choir, she has always attended choir activities on time. No matter if it was sunny or windy or rainy, she never came late or left early. In particular, she was never absent from the Monday and Wednesday evening choir practices and activities.
Since believing in the Lord, her life has changed in every way. In daily life, she bid farewell to the old days of sorrow and tears. Instead, she learned to pray, read the Bible, and listen and speak to God every day. Though the surroundings in which she lived were the same, and though her former acquaintances still shunned her, her heart was filled with the joy of the Lord. Every Monday and Wednesday evening she goes to church to practice singing hymns in the choir. Every Tuesday and Friday she goes to the church to participate in group activities and teach people how to sing hymns.
Every Sunday, she goes to church early to prepare for the worship service. Half an hour before the Sunday service begins, she takes to the stage to teach hymns to the sisters and brothers who have come early.
Her husband saw that she was so happy to believe in the Lord, so he was influenced and followed her daily prayer and Bible reading. Two years later, on Christmas Day, December 25, 2010, he went to church and was baptized. She knew that God was in charge of all the matters in her children's families. Her two sons and daughter had jobs and then had families of their own. Now they have three grandchildren. She was so happy to see them going out to work every day and coming home safe.
One day in August 2007, at the age of 70, her husband was sent to the hospital because of severe heart pain. After being examined in the emergency department, the doctor said that 95 percent of the blood vessels in his heart were blocked and that her husband needed to have heart bypass surgery immediately. At that time Sister Liao’s leg hurt so much that she couldn't stand up, let alone walk or visit her husband. Sister Liao knelt down to pray to God for her husband's operation. She didn't go to the hospital, but more than a dozen sisters from the church showed up and knelt in the hallway outside the operating room and prayed for him for six and a half hours. The bypass surgery was successful. He stayed in the hospital for a week, then recovered and went home.
After her husband followed her example and became a Christian, he no longer lost his temper and he gave up his decades-long habit of smoking. Every morning when they wake up and finish praying, she will read the Bible to him, and when she is tired, he will go on reading the Bible to her. During this year's pandemic, they did not stop reading the Bible. They keep it up and read the entire Bible once a year. They have read through the Bible a dozen times in the thirteen years since her husband came out of the hospital. In addition to reading through the Bible, they sometimes practice singing hymns together. Now, at the age of 83, her husband can sing three hymns by himself.
At the same time, one of her grandsons had to take an exam to be employed, and one of her granddaughters had to take the college entrance examination. They all said to her "Grandma, I am going to take an exam. Please pray for me!" During the days when her grandson took the exam to be employed and her granddaughter took the exam to college, she prayed every day for her two grandchildren to do well on the exams. As a result, the grandson passed the exam and found a job, and a granddaughter was also admitted to a university in Beijing.
Sister Liao shared that after she became a Christian, she realized that the Lord had led her step by step into God's house through her family's great sufferings. She has profited from her misfortunes and is living a happy and fulfilled life.
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
十月的这一天，笔者来到市郊区的一所居民小区。在院内门卫师傅指引下，七拐八拐的在一座老式楼房一楼东户找到了被采访的寥姊妹家。
寥姊妹打开门，指了指里屋，低声说老头子刚刚服过药，现正在睡觉。
在客厅，她说自己是1943年出生的，过去的77年里，说最难忘的是1992年早春的那一天。1991年的冬天，家里突遭变故，身为顶梁柱的丈夫突然犯错丢掉了工作。当时她还没有信主，更不知道靠主得胜撑起自己的家。她自己干了几十年的临时工作也被强行辞退了。院子里以往见自己特热乎的邻居也绕着、躲着她。突然间被跌进了万丈深渊，她感到被这个社会无情抛弃了……
廖出生在千里之外的广西贺州市八步镇，当年家特别穷。全家七口人，父母和兄妹五人。在那个生活特别苦的年代里，家里也没有什么经济来源，全凭父亲种的几分山地里的蔬菜卖点零钱维持生活。年幼的我被母亲领着，时而为一些做小生意的老板干点零活补贴家用。在大多时间里，年少的她跟着母亲干着为老板挑着担子送碗、送木材、送板皮的苦活儿。而每次去做这样的工作，都要挑着担子走十几里的山路。辛苦上整整一天的母亲和她，才能挣到5元钱。
由于家里太穷，她开始上学时已到了9岁。挣扎着念完6年小学，接着上了个半工半读的二年半初中。在上半工半学校时，我养过鸡、鸭，还喂过猪。最苦的差事，是在老师带领下，每逢周六、周日两天摸着黑进山砍柴劳作。那时候她刚满17岁，由于缺少营养显得瘦小而单薄。
当在20岁的时候，也就是到了公元1963年，她离开娘家门，远嫁到遥远北方的一个城市。从南方来到千里以外的北方，给了她一个陌生的环境和艰难。一是语言不通，和周围人不能很好的交流；二是在生活习惯上，短时间里根本不能适应。北方的气候干燥风头高，引起我眼涩、咽疼、喉干；三是最感到头疼的是，做为新婚妻子的廖，不会给丈夫的一家做一顿北方的家常便饭。
自从嫁到北方这座城市，经过几年的苦熬，廖终于渐渐适应了北方的气候，北方的家常便饭也会做了。她也有了一份临时工作，虽然工资不高，但终于有能力养活自己，还能结余点补贴家用。但谁能想到，在1969年她的丈夫被打成臭老九，全家被强迫下放到农村去劳动锻炼。在农村这一待，就是整整十年。直到在1979年随着丈夫被平反，他们全家又返城重新当了居民。丈夫官复原职当上了机关里的科长，自己也在局机关门口小卖部上了班。看起来，一家的生活都在向美好的方向发展。
1991年，丈夫这棵家里的顶梁柱倒下了，他丢了工作，她自己也因此被逼迫离开了小卖部，失去了工作。这一年，是她人生路上最艰难、最难熬的一年。
这一天，当她像以往一样正坐在窗前傻望傻想时，突然传了“咚、咚”敲门声，她心里在想，都快寂寞半年多了，还有谁能敲响自己家的门。是位50多岁、同自己一般年纪的姊妹，说是耶稣让我来找她的。她带那位姐妹去一个陌生的居民小区的一户陌生人家。踏进门，只见不大的客厅里、有十多个人围在一张圆桌旁。每人面前放着一本被打开的厚厚黑皮书，一位年轻姊妹在读着书里的话。领她来的姊妹对她低声说，我们都是基督徒，是信主的。说着指了指墙上耶稣画像……
在以后的日子里，她去过多次后，终于知道了这是一所教会下面的聚会点，读的书是圣经。那一年的复活节，她受洗成了一名基督徒。
信主后，她在教会认识了不少新朋友，耶稣的大爱让她渐渐从孤独中走了出来。
1993年教会成立了诗班，她第一时间踊跃报了名，参加了刚刚组建的诗班团契。自从参加诗班团契以来，在那过去了的28个春夏秋冬，无论是天晴日丽，还是刮风下雨，她都会按时参加，从来不迟到早退。尤其是每个礼拜一、礼拜三晚上教会诗班的诗歌练唱活动，从未缺席过一次。
自从信主后，使她在各方面都有了大的改变。在日常生活中，告别了过去整天愁苦和以泪洗面的日子。换来的是每天的祷告向神说话，每天的读经听神对我说话的喜乐日子。虽然她居住的环境如旧，虽然过去的熟人还是躲着她走，但在她心里，已被主的阳光喜乐充满。每个礼拜一、礼拜三晚上去教会参加诗班团契练唱赞美诗歌，每个礼拜二、礼拜五，她要去教会下属聚会点参加小组活动，为大家教唱赞美诗歌。
在每个礼拜天的主日时间里，她会早早去教堂做一下准备。在主日聚会正式开始前的半个小时里，她登台为提前赶来教堂聚会的姊妹弟兄教唱赞美诗歌。
她家丈夫看她信主后这么喜乐，也被感染的跟着每天祷告、读圣经。过了两年，也就是2010年12月25日圣诞节这天，他到教会受洗信主了。她知道，孩子们各自家庭的大事小事上帝都管，在两个儿子和女儿都有了工作后，接着也有了自己的家庭。现在，他们还为我抱上了二个孙子和一个外孙。看到他们每天高兴外出上班，平安回家，她心里特别高兴。
老头子在70岁时的2007年8月份一天，因心脏不适疼痛剧烈，住进了医院。被急诊检查后说心脏血管已经堵了百分之九十五了，要马上做心脏搭桥手术。她因腿疼得站不起来，更是走不了路，无法去看望。廖姐妹就跪下来向神祷告，保佑老头子手术顺利。 她虽然没有去医院，但教会有十多个姊妹来到了医院，她们跪在手术室外的走廊上为他祷告6个半小时。心脏搭桥手术非常成功。他住了一个礼拜就康复回家了。
自老头子跟着她信主后，几十年的暴脾气也改了，抽了几十年的烟也戒了。每天早晨醒来后，他俩祷告结束后，她就开始给他读圣经，读累了，他会接着为我读圣经。在今年的疫情期间，他俩也没有中断读圣经。这样坚持下来，每年能通读一遍圣经全本。自老头子生病出院后的十三年来，已和老头子共同通读了十几遍圣经了。我俩每天除过通读圣经外，有时候还共同学唱赞美诗歌。如今已83岁高龄的他，会独自唱完三首赞美诗歌了。
记得在当年同一个时间段，她的一个孙子要考试招工，一个孙女要参加大学考试。他们都对我说“奶奶，我要考试了，你给我祷告啊！”在孙子考试招工、孙女考试上大学的那几天，她每天为两个孙子祈祷，希望他们能考出好成绩来。结果，那个孙子经过考试被顺利招了工，一个孙女也被一北京大学录取了。
廖姐妹分享到，在后来信主后，她才明白那是主借着她家的一个接一个的大苦难，把她一步一步引领进了神的家门。她也“因祸得福”，从此在后半生过上了属灵的幸福喜乐生活。
苦难背后有恩典，风雨过后是彩虹——访信主有喜乐的寥姊妹
One day in October, I came to a residential community in the suburbs of a city in China's northern Shaanxi Province. Under the guidance of the gatekeeper of the community, and after walking a long and winding road, I finally found Sister Liao. I interviewed her in her apartment on the first floor of an old building.
Sister Liao opened the door, pointed to the inner room, and whispered that her husband had just taken some medicine and was sleeping.
Liao said that she was born in 1943. For the past 77 years, her most memorable days were in the early spring of 1992. In the winter of 1991, the family took a turn for the worse when her breadwinner husband suddenly made a mistake and lost his job. At that time, she had not yet believed in the Lord Jesus, and she did not know how to support her family through faith in the Lord. She was forced out of a temporary job she had held for decades. The neighbors in the yard who used to be particularly nice and thoughtful also began to avoid her. Suddenly she fell into the abyss, feeling abandoned by society...
Liao was born in Babu Town, Hezhou City, Guangxi Province, which is a thousand miles from her present home. There were seven people in her poor family, including her parents, her brothers, and sisters. In those especially hard times, the family had little financial support and lived only on the little money earned by selling vegetables that her father had grown in the mountains. As a young child, sometimes she would be led by her mother to do odd jobs for small business owners to support the family. Most of the time, as a young girl, she followed her mother and helped her to do the hard work of delivering the bowls, woods, and boards. Every time when they did such a job, they had to walk and carry a heavy load for more than ten miles in the mountains. After a whole day's hard work, her mother and she were able to only earn 5 yuan.
Because her family was too poor, she didn’t begin school until she was age nine. She struggled through six years of primary school and then worked her way through two and a half years of secondary school. When she was in school, she raised chickens, ducks, and pigs. The most difficult task was when under the guidance of her teacher she needed to cut firewood in the mountains before dawn every Saturday and Sunday. At that time, she had just turned 17 and was thin for lack of nourishment.
In 1963, at the age of 20, she left her family and got married in a city in the far north. Coming from the south to the north, thousands of miles away, left her in a strange and difficult environment. First, there was the language barrier. She could not communicate very well with the people around her; Second, the different habits and customs were different. She could not adapt to them in a short period of time. The climate in the north is dry, which caused dry eyes, pain in the pharynx, and dry throat. The biggest headache was that as a new wife, she could not prepare a common northern meal for her husband's family.
After many years, Liao gradually adapted to the northern climate and was able to prepare meals according to local customs. She also had a temporary job that paid little, but she was able to support herself and save some money to support the family. No one expected that in 1969 her husband would be regarded as the “stinking ninth category” (intellectuals) and the family was sent to the countryside to reform through labour. They stayed in the countryside for ten years. It was not until 1979, with her husband was exonerated, that the family returned to the city and became residents again. Her husband was able to return to his former position and became the section chief in an organ. She also worked in the shop at the gate of the organ. It seemed that the life of the family was developing in a better direction.
Her husband, the breadwinner of the family, lost his job in 1991, forcing her out of work too. It was the hardest and most difficult year of her life.
That day, when she was sitting at the window with her mind wandering as before, suddenly there was knock on the door. She thought: “No one has visited me for more than half a year. Who would knock on the door of my house?” It was a sister from the church who was in her 50s, similar to her own age. The sister said: “Jesus sent me to find you.” Then she took Liao to a stranger's house in a strange neighborhood. Stepping through the doorway, she saw more than ten people gathered around a round table in the small sitting room. In front of each of them was a thick black book that was open. A young sister was reading out loud. The sister who had brought her there whispered to her: “We are all Christians. We believe in God.” Then she pointed to the picture of Jesus on the wall. . .
After many visits in the following days, she finally realized that this was the meeting place of a church and that the book she was reading was the Bible. On Easter Sunday that year, she was baptized.
After she believed in the Lord, she made many new friends in the church, and the great love of Jesus gradually brought her out of her loneliness.
In 1993, the church established a choir, and she immediately signed up. In the next 28 springs, summers, autumns, and winters that have passed since she joined the choir, she has always attended choir activities on time. No matter if it was sunny or windy or rainy, she never came late or left early. In particular, she was never absent from the Monday and Wednesday evening choir practices and activities.
Since believing in the Lord, her life has changed in every way. In daily life, she bid farewell to the old days of sorrow and tears. Instead, she learned to pray, read the Bible, and listen and speak to God every day. Though the surroundings in which she lived were the same, and though her former acquaintances still shunned her, her heart was filled with the joy of the Lord. Every Monday and Wednesday evening she goes to church to practice singing hymns in the choir. Every Tuesday and Friday she goes to the church to participate in group activities and teach people how to sing hymns.
Every Sunday, she goes to church early to prepare for the worship service. Half an hour before the Sunday service begins, she takes to the stage to teach hymns to the sisters and brothers who have come early.
Her husband saw that she was so happy to believe in the Lord, so he was influenced and followed her daily prayer and Bible reading. Two years later, on Christmas Day, December 25, 2010, he went to church and was baptized. She knew that God was in charge of all the matters in her children's families. Her two sons and daughter had jobs and then had families of their own. Now they have three grandchildren. She was so happy to see them going out to work every day and coming home safe.
One day in August 2007, at the age of 70, her husband was sent to the hospital because of severe heart pain. After being examined in the emergency department, the doctor said that 95 percent of the blood vessels in his heart were blocked and that her husband needed to have heart bypass surgery immediately. At that time Sister Liao’s leg hurt so much that she couldn't stand up, let alone walk or visit her husband. Sister Liao knelt down to pray to God for her husband's operation. She didn't go to the hospital, but more than a dozen sisters from the church showed up and knelt in the hallway outside the operating room and prayed for him for six and a half hours. The bypass surgery was successful. He stayed in the hospital for a week, then recovered and went home.
After her husband followed her example and became a Christian, he no longer lost his temper and he gave up his decades-long habit of smoking. Every morning when they wake up and finish praying, she will read the Bible to him, and when she is tired, he will go on reading the Bible to her. During this year's pandemic, they did not stop reading the Bible. They keep it up and read the entire Bible once a year. They have read through the Bible a dozen times in the thirteen years since her husband came out of the hospital. In addition to reading through the Bible, they sometimes practice singing hymns together. Now, at the age of 83, her husband can sing three hymns by himself.
At the same time, one of her grandsons had to take an exam to be employed, and one of her granddaughters had to take the college entrance examination. They all said to her "Grandma, I am going to take an exam. Please pray for me!" During the days when her grandson took the exam to be employed and her granddaughter took the exam to college, she prayed every day for her two grandchildren to do well on the exams. As a result, the grandson passed the exam and found a job, and a granddaughter was also admitted to a university in Beijing.
Sister Liao shared that after she became a Christian, she realized that the Lord had led her step by step into God's house through her family's great sufferings. She has profited from her misfortunes and is living a happy and fulfilled life.
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
Grace through Suffering: An Interview with Sister Liao
