I was born into a poor family. When I was 12, my mom died from a brain tumor, and for this reason our poverty got even worse. My younger brother and I also suffered a great setback. So that we would suffer less and live a happy life like that of other kids at our age, my dad put us with my grandma’s family and then went outside the village to work. My grandpa was a person who despised the poor and curried favor with the rich, and he also treated his children this way. As my father’s elder brother was a secretary in another province and had money and influence, my grandpa liked my uncle’s family very much. He often praised my uncle and belittled my dad in front of my brother and me, saying that my dad was incapable and could achieve nothing. He also mocked us, was sarcastic toward us, and treated us coldly. Seeing this, my grandma, who dearly loved us, would get very angry, but she dared not speak up for us as my grandpa had a bad temper. Living in such a home environment, my brother and I both felt very distressed and oppressed. Because of this, I often wept secretly alone under my quilt, and I missed my mom and dad as well as the happy family we once had. But I knew it was only a memory, maybe the sweetest memory of my life, and those days had passed. At that time, I made a firm resolution to go out to make money after I grew up. If I made a lot of money, I would be looked up to by my grandpa, and my brother and I wouldn’t live in such suffering.
After I graduated from junior middle school, I stopped going to school and began to look for jobs with several classmates. I found a series of jobs, but none was suitable for me. My uncle’s wife talked it over with my uncle and asked him to find a better job for me. Unexpectedly, he said, with a kind of disdain and sarcasm, “There are many good jobs, but does she have the competence for them? Look, she is neither talented nor well-educated. It’s a daydream to think that she’ll find a good job.” My uncle’s words were like a basin of cold water being poured on me, chilling me from head to feet. I had never thought he could speak such heartless words, which were a big blow to me. From then on, I made an even firmer determination: No matter the price or the hardships, I must find ways to make more money and live a wealthy life. I won’t let them disparage me any longer. After that, I put much more effort in looking for jobs. In that year, I worked as a house painter, worked in a plastics plant, and also worked in a shoe factory. These jobs were hard and tiring, and were harmful to my health. Other classmates all quit such jobs because they couldn’t bear the hardships. But I forced myself to hold on and wasn’t absent from work once, no matter how cold it was and no matter how far away the place was. However, all I had done was physical work, and by the end of year I hadn’t made much money even though I had suffered much. At that time, I couldn’t help feeling some despair and I cried to myself: “Heavens! How come my fate is so awful? I have worked so hard, so why can’t I make much money?”
Seeing that I couldn’t realize my dream of living a superior life no matter how hard I struggled, I started pinning all my hopes on looking for a good partner. I thought: I myself can’t make much money, but if I look for a wealthy and influential partner, I can still live a good life and gain the admiration of my grandpa and uncle and the others. But things went contrary to my wishes. Several young men were introduced to me in succession, but I wasn’t satisfied with them at an emotional level because they were all cooks who I thought would accomplish nothing. But I still got married to a cook, my present husband. After we got married, my husband was very nice to me, and my mother-in-law also took a good care of me and treated me as her own daughter. I enjoyed their warmth and affection. But I wasn’t content with our financial situation and still put all my heart into making money. At this time, my mother-in-law accepted God’s gospel of the last days and she told this good news to us. I knew faith in God is a good thing, but because I couldn’t drop my desire to stand out and be an important person, my head was still filled with thoughts of how to make more money. So, though I accepted God’s work of the last days, I had no mind to pursue it. My mother-in-law and brothers and sisters from the church all fellowshiped with me and asked me to attend gatherings, but I was too stubborn and didn’t listen to them. And I also didn’t take what they were saying seriously.
One day, my husband told me that he since had good cooking skills, he didn’t want to work for others all the time and wanted to run his own restaurant. Hearing this, I was a little worried. I thought that since every trade is full of fierce competition, making money is not easy. What if we don’t succeed? Our family is not rich; if we suffer a loss, won’t we become even poorer? And then we will be looked down on by others even more. But I also thought that maybe this was the only chance for me to have a better life. If I were too hesitant and afraid to have a try then I’ll probably be looked down on all my life. No! I must have a try. After I made up my mind, we did it right away. First, we found a business partner because our funds were limited. Unexpectedly, after our restaurant opened and our business became more and more brisk. People in factories and offices around our restaurant all came for meals because our meals were healthy and inexpensive. Some regular customers recommended us to their friends. Seeing this, my initial worries disappeared completely, and I put my heart and soul into the business so I had even less time or inclination to believe in God and attend gatherings. Just when our business was flourishing, our young business partner became over-worked and couldn’t raise his arms due to making hand-pulled noodles all days. And he didn’t get better after receiving treatment, so he withdrew his stake and left. So the restaurant became our own and subsequently our workloads became even heavier. In order to make more money, we worked continually, like machines, every day from morning to evening. In the evening, if I was too sleepy I would put my head on a table for a short nap. Every day, by the time I tidied up everything it was one or two o’clock in the morning. Lying in bed, I ached with tiredness all over as if my body were falling apart. I didn’t want to move a muscle. But as long as I thought of the money I had earned and the superior life I would live in the near future, I felt all the tiredness and pain was worth it. And I also felt that the life I had dreamed of was at hand.
We worked hard like this year after year and made more and more money. In order to gain the esteem of our relatives and friends, my husband and I decided to buy a car. One day, my husband asked our eldest cousin, who knew much about cars, to accompany us to look at some. Since we didn’t have enough money to buy a nice car, my husband and I wanted to first buy a second-hand car and then buy a new car when we had more money in the future. But when we went to the second-hand market and saw that all the second-hand cars were cheaper yet very inferior, I thought: If I buy a second-hand car, my relatives and friends will surely laugh at me and think that I have no money to buy a new car. Rather than spending money to buy a second-hand car and be laughed at by others, it would be better to buy a new car. So we went to the new car market. Seeing the brand-new cars, I thought: Why don’t I buy a luxury car and drive it home to show my grandpa and uncle that I am now something and am no longer the young girl they looked down upon? When I thought of this, my attitude became absolutely different from before: I now wanted to buy a nice car to achieve my long-planned wish, even if it meant belt-tightening in the future. Therefore, I went straight toward the cars worth over a hundred thousand yuan. At that moment, my cousin said with a smile, “Gosh! Wang Hong, you really have made money running the restaurant. You didn’t even glance at the cars worth tens of thousands of yuan, but went directly toward those worth over a hundred thousand yuan.” Hearing his words, I felt elated and couldn’t help walking with my head held high. In order to buy the car early, we took out most of our savings, paid the first payment several days later, and drove the car home. One day some time later, my brother called and said that something had happened at my grandma’s home. The whole family was going there, and he asked us to go there too. I hung up, and my husband and I got in our car to drive there. On the way, I continually thought of how surprised they’d be when they saw my husband and me proudly get out of our car. The thought of this brought joy beyond expression to my heart and I couldn’t wait to drive the car up to my grandma’s house. And I thought: “This time you’ll all know I’ve bought a car, a nicer car than yours.” However, because there were already too many people there, when we arrived at the village my grandma lived in we saw that all the lanes were packed with cars, so we couldn’t drive up to my grandma’s house. Not having a choice, we had to park the car at the entrance of the village, and I felt a little disappointed. As I was walking and thinking, I came across my aunt, who asked me how I came. The time had finally come, so I said with great pride: “We have just bought a new car, so we drove here.” My aunt’s eyes were immediately full of admiration and I felt extremely happy. In the following hours, I no longer hid away as before, but joined my contemporaries and talked about cars with them. When they found out that my car was the most expensive among them, they all looked at me with admiration. At that time, it felt like my ideals had finally been realized, and I’d become a wealthy person and would never be looked down on by them again. On that day, my vanity was greatly satisfied and it seemed as if I felt a bit of real happiness.
But after the short-lived happiness, we were faced with the cruel reality. While we garnered others’ admiration by driving the car everywhere, and we indeed held our heads high, but the bitterness behind the glory was unknown to them. After we bought the car, we had to repay the car loan, paying six thousand yuan each month. In order to make more money to repay the loan, we started doing wedding banquets at our restaurant. After a whole day working on a banquet, I was too tired to move my legs an inch. When I went to sleep at night I just wanted it to stay dark forever. Because of being busy with business, when any of my relatives invited us to something, I would not go and just asked others to gift some money on my behalf. My aunt said that we indulged in making money so much so that we had little human kindness. Hearing that, I felt quite troubled but I couldn’t think too much about it. No matter what they said or no matter how they thought of me, I just couldn’t stop making money. If I didn’t work hard to make money, how could I repay that big loan? Besides, if the others knew that we’d bought the car but couldn’t repay the loan, wouldn’t they die laughing? In that year, we three had to scrimp and save for every cent. When I saw that other people bought whatever they wanted, I was very jealous, but when I thought of the loan, I had to be firm and not buy anything. In addition, on weekends, we would bring our child to the restaurant, but we didn’t have time to take care of him. Sometimes, he played alone; sometimes, when we were too busy, we even let him help out. When he was tired, he would go to sleep alone. Every time when I saw how lonely and pitiful he was my heart would be full of pain and sorrow. At the time, I couldn’t help questioning myself: “Why do we work so hard? What on earth am I pursuing by working like this? Is this the happiness I want to gain? Is it worth it to let my family suffer like this just in order to be looked up to by others? Why am I suffering like this?”
I was utterly miserable and perplexed, but then I remembered God, who I had long since forgotten. Then, at a meeting, I recounted my condition to the sisters. Hearing what I said, a sister found two passages of God’s words for me to read: “In fact, no matter how lofty man’s ideals are, no matter how realistic man’s desires are or how proper they may be, all that man wants to achieve, all that man seeks for, is inextricably linked to two words. These two words are vitally important to the life of every person, and they are things Satan intends to instill in man. What are these two words? They are ‘fame’ and ‘gain.’ Satan uses a very subtle kind of method, a method very much in concert with people’s notions, which is not at all radical, through which it causes people to unknowingly accept its way of living, its rules to live by, and to establish life goals and their direction in life, and in doing so they also unknowingly come to have ambitions in life. No matter how grand these life ambitions may seem, they are inextricably linked to ‘fame’ and ‘gain.’ Everything that any great or famous person—all people, in fact—follow in life relates only to these two words: ‘fame’ and ‘gain.’ People think that once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on those things to enjoy high status and great wealth, and to enjoy life. They think fame and gain are a kind of capital that they can use to obtain a life of pleasure-seeking and wanton enjoyment of the flesh. For the sake of this fame and gain which mankind so covets, people willingly, albeit unknowingly, hand over their bodies, minds, all that they have, their futures and their destinies, to Satan. They do so without even a moment’s hesitation, ever ignorant of the need to recover all that they have handed over. Can people retain any control over themselves once they have taken refuge in Satan in this way and become loyal to it? Certainly not. They are completely and utterly controlled by Satan. They have completely and utterly sunk into a quagmire, and are unable to free themselves. Once someone is mired in fame and gain, they no longer seek that which is bright, that which is righteous, or those things that are beautiful and good. This is because the seductive power that fame and gain have over people is too great; they become things for people to pursue throughout their lives and even for all eternity without end. Is this not true?” “Satan uses fame and gain to control man’s thoughts, until all people can think of is fame and gain. They struggle for fame and gain, suffer hardships for fame and gain, endure humiliation for fame and gain, sacrifice everything they have for fame and gain, and they will make any judgment or decision for the sake of fame and gain. In this way, Satan binds people with invisible shackles, and they have neither the strength nor the courage to throw them off. They unknowingly bear these shackles and trudge ever onward with great difficulty.” “‘Money makes the world go round’ is a philosophy of Satan, and it prevails among the whole of mankind, in every human society. You could say that it is a trend because it has been instilled in the heart of every single person. From the very beginning, people did not accept this saying, but then they gave it tacit acceptance when they came into contact with real life, and began to feel that these words were in fact true. Is this not a process of Satan corrupting man? … So after Satan uses this trend to corrupt people, how is it manifested in them? Do you feel that you could not survive in this world without any money, that even one day without money would be impossible? People’s status is based on how much money they have, as is the respect they command. The backs of the poor are bent in shame, while the rich enjoy their high status. They stand tall and proud, speaking loudly and living arrogantly. What does this saying and trend bring to people? Is it not true that many people make any sacrifice in the pursuit of money? Do many people not lose their dignity and integrity in the pursuit of more money? Moreover, do many people not lose the opportunity to perform their duty and follow God for the sake of money? Is this not a loss for people? (Yes.) Is Satan not sinister to use this method and this saying to corrupt man to such a degree? Is this not a malicious trick? … That is to say, this saying already controls your behavior and your thoughts, and you would rather have your fate controlled by it than give it all up. Does not the fact that people act in this way, that they are controlled by this saying and manipulated by it, illustrate that Satan’s corrupting of man is effective? Is this not the philosophy and corrupt disposition of Satan taking root in your heart? If you do this, has Satan not achieved its goal? (Yes.) Do you see how Satan has corrupted man in this way? Can you feel it? (No.) You have neither seen it nor felt it. Do you see Satan’s evil here? Satan corrupts man at all times and in all places. Satan makes it impossible for man to defend against this corruption and makes man helpless against it. Satan makes you accept its thoughts, its viewpoints and the evil things that come from it in situations where you are unknowing and when you have no recognition of what is happening to you. People accept these things and take no exception to them. They cherish and hold on to these things like a treasure, they let these things manipulate them and toy with them; this is how Satan’s corruption of man grows ever deeper.” Through reading God’s words and hearing the sister’s fellowship, I came to know how Satan uses money, fame and gain to corrupt people step by step, and how I’d gradually walked step by step into Satan’s trap. Since childhood, I had been influenced by my family environment and accepted Satan’s poisonous ideas, such as “getting ahead and being on top,” “money makes the mare go,” and “having money means having everything” – as maxims for the journey of my life. I’d always felt that having money would bring me everything and make me superior to others. And with money, I could hold my head high and not be looked down on by others; with money, I could live a high-quality lifestyle far better than other people had. My outlook on life and values began to be distorted, and I was ignorant of what is the most valuable, meaningful, and worthy pursuit in life. Instead, I treated making money as the only objective of my life, and considered enjoying money, fame and gain to be happiness. When I was looked down on by my grandpa and uncle, I became determined to change my situation and live a superior life so that I would be highly thought of by others. So I started to strive hard when I was only a teenager. No matter whether it was looking for jobs everywhere or suffered hardships at work, all that I had done was to make money to be highly regarded by others. As an adult, I even looked for a partner based on whether he had money and influence and whether he could help me rise in society. And after we set up the restaurant and bought the car, any decision I made or any price I paid was still in order to make money and get the wealth and status that I had always wanted. Before I realized it, I had become a slave to money, fame and gain. I had heard God’s gospel of the last days but I was still enticed by money, fame and gain, and the result was that I didn’t have the time or inclination to read God’s words and learn God’s will. By only focusing on making money, I fell into Satan’s snare and strayed ever further from God. And moreover, for the sake of making money I kept distance from my family, lost emotional connection with my relatives and friends, and even made my young child’s life difficult and prevented him from enjoying family warmth and parental care. Not until I was worn out, totally lost myself, and couldn’t find the meaning of life was I suddenly awakened. Along the way, I had struggled hard to make money so as to live my long-cherished dream life, simply believing that once I had money I could turn my life around, be looked up to by others, and live a decent and carefree life. I had never thought that though gaining these things momentarily satisfied my desires and vanity, afterward I had to face more pressure. This lifestyle left me depressed and in pain because I felt as if I were a money-making machine, or a fully wound clock that couldn’t stop. The pursuit of money, fame and gain had caused me much physical and emotional suffering. If it hadn’t been for the revelation of God’s words, I wouldn’t have seen through Satan’s schemes or its big lies, and would still be fooled and afflicted by Satan. The struggle for money, fame and gain exhausted me so much that I didn’t have time to come before God, read His words or worship Him, and so nearly lost the precious opportunity of God’s salvation. With this knowledge, I sincerely thanked God for saving me. And I was willing to repent to God and come before God more to read His words and equip myself with the truths.
Later on, my husband and I began to find time to attend meetings. Through reading God’s words and hearing the brothers’ and sisters’ fellowship, I gradually understood the significance of God’s two incarnations. I learned that God did the work of redeeming all mankind from sins through His crucifixion when He was incarnated for the first time. And nowadays, God has once again become flesh and expressed the truth, doing the work of judging and cleansing people. He will thoroughly save us from the domain of Satan, make us return before Him, and bring us into a new heaven and earth that He has prepared for us. After understanding God’s kind intention to save people, my husband and I had more enthusiasm to attend meetings. In particular, when I began to live the church life with the brothers and sisters, I found that even though they wore simple clothes and didn’t have too much material enjoyment, their faces were filled with smiles as they willingly shared their personal experiences and testimonies. I could see it was God’s words that let every one of them live in ease and freedom. Whereas I got my desired fame and gain and enjoyed expensive material things, yet I couldn’t extricate myself from the depression and pain buried in my spirit. This made me feel that only God’s words could bring people real happiness. Gradually, both my husband and I began to lead a normal church life, and whenever encountering problems we knew to come before God, pray, and seek God’s will. Our viewpoints on things also changed somewhat: We no longer busied about all day for money, fame and gain as before and the stress in our life diminished. One day, on my way to my restaurant I saw that many new restaurants had opened up. At that point, I began to think: Everyone actually knows it’s difficult and exhausting to pursue money, fame and gain, so why do so many people, like me, still scramble to engage in business? With this question, I came before God seeking the truth and read some of God’s words: “Would you say that the happiness pursued by unbelievers is true happiness? Actually, it isn’t. It is what people imagine happiness to be, and it is a depraved method, a path that makes people depraved. People’s pursuit of this is not the objective that normal humanity ought to have, it is not the value in living. What was planted by Satan has caused people to make this their objective. Satan has used this means to benumb people, to corrupt, attract, entice, and beguile them, making them think that this is happiness, making them chase that goal. People think that this is happiness, that only when they gain this will they be happy, and so, regardless of how much effort it takes, they chase that goal—and the result is, once they’ve achieved it, they still feel that they haven’t gained true happiness, yes? (Yes.) This proves that this is not the right path, that it is the path to death.” After reading God’s words, I suddenly awakened to the truth. I understood that we—corrupted mankind—don’t have the truth, nor possess the ability to discern right from wrong, good from evil. And we can’t even see positive and negative things clearly. Satan uses fame and gain to entice and corrupt people, labeling money, fame and gain as happiness. In this way, people are deceived by these false fronts created by Satan and treat them as positive things to pursue, believing that they can get happiness through attaining them. But their spirits become much emptier after getting them. In this world, the famous and great, and all the influential people, are all pursuing the objectives Satan instills in mankind. Their fleshly desires become greater and greater, and they employ every possible method to pursue the so-called happy life. Though they make a great deal of money, they become even more emptier in their spirits, not knowing the value and meaning of life, and finally become numb and depraved. In the hunt for excitement, some people begin to take drugs and some become sexually promiscuous. Some even choose suicide as an escape from their empty life. The fame and gain that they spend their lifetime pursuing not only doesn’t give them a happy life but instead brings them death. Thinking back to my past, in order to live better than others and enjoy so-called happiness, I sweated my guts out like a money-making machine. Due to long-term heavy labor, my health became ever worse, even though I was still young. Then I thought of the young man who joined us to open up the restaurant. He suffered illness for the sake of making money, which brought him irretrievable consequence. Wasn’t this all Satan’s affliction? Later on, even though I had a car of my own and some money, I didn’t feel happy in my heart, but instead I felt my life was tedious and ever emptier. I could find no value or meaning in life.
Afterward, I read another passage of God’s words: “There is an exceedingly simple way to free oneself from this state, which is to bid farewell to one’s former way of living; to say goodbye to one’s previous goals in life; to summarize and analyze one’s previous lifestyle, view of life, pursuits, desires, and ideals; and then to compare them with God’s will and demands for man, and see whether any of them is consistent with God’s will and demands, whether any of them delivers the right values of life, leads one to a greater understanding of the truth, and allows one to live with humanity and the likeness of a human being. When you repeatedly investigate and carefully dissect the various goals that people pursue in life and their myriad ways of living, you will find not one of them conforms to the Creator’s original intention with which He created humanity. All of them draw people away from the Creator’s sovereignty and care; they are all traps which cause people to become depraved, and which lead them to hell. After you recognize this, your task is to lay aside your old view of life, stay far from various traps, let God take charge of your life and make arrangements for you; it is to try only to submit to God’s orchestrations and guidance, to live without individual choice, and to become a person who worships God.” God’s words directed me to the way of practice, allowing me to understand this: God is the Creator while I am only a little created being. What I should do is submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, forsake my former ways and the goals of my existence, commit the rest of my life to God’s hands, and let God rule over and arrange it. In the past, I pursued the goals Satan instilled in me, and that kind of life was really too miserable and heartbreaking. I deeply felt that people who don’t know the truth will only be fooled by Satan, and will spend their precious lives in vain. Now I’ve understood God’s will, I know that only if we come before God, pursue the truth and live by God’s words can we live out a meaningful life. From now on, I will change my way of life, and no longer busy myself with money, fame and gain. And I will pursue the truth earnestly, perform the duty of a created being to repay God’s love, and bring back to God’s family more people who have yet to come before God so that they can also enjoy the watering of God’s words, get the chance of being saved by God, and enjoy a genuinely meaningful and happy life.
Later, after some discussion with my husband, we decided to sell our restaurant. This way, we wouldn’t have to be as busy as before and could have more time to read God’s words and spread the gospel. But just when we resolved to change our former way of living and stop suffering Satan’s affliction, Satan was unwilling to admit defeat and tempted me through a family member. When my brother learned that we would sell the restaurant, he hurried to my home and tried to persuade us to carry on: “It’s such a brisk business and makes a lot of money. What a pity to give it up!” Hearing what my brother said, I knew that if we stopped running our restaurant, we would make less money and the material enjoyments we had wouldn’t be as nice as before, so I hesitated a little. At this moment, I suddenly realized: Isn’t this the temptation of Satan? Then I hurriedly prayed to God and asked Him to grant me faith and resolution so that I could see through Satan’s schemes and no longer be afflicted and fooled by it. God’s words say: “God’s authority exists regardless of the circumstances. In all situations, God dictates and arranges every human fate and all things in accordance with His thoughts and His wishes. This will not change as a result of human change; it is independent of man’s will, cannot be altered by any changes in time, space, and geography, for God’s authority is His very essence. Whether man is able to know and accept God’s sovereignty, and whether man is able to submit to it—neither of these considerations alters in the slightest the fact of God’s sovereignty over human fate. That is to say, no matter what attitude man takes toward God’s sovereignty, it simply cannot change the fact that God holds sovereignty over human fate and over all things. Even if you do not submit to God’s sovereignty, He still commands your fate; even if you cannot know His sovereignty, His authority still exists. God’s authority and the fact of God’s sovereignty over human fate are independent of human will, and do not change in accordance with man’s preferences and choices.” From God’s words I understood: Man’s fate is in God’s hands. Whether my life is poor or rich was predetermined by God long ago, and it can’t be changed by my own efforts. Without God’s blessings, even if I strived hard and got my desired material enjoyment, I still couldn’t attain real happiness. As a creature, obeying God’s orchestrations and arrangements is the wisest choice for me. Thinking of this, I said to my brother proudly, “In the past, because your brother-in-law and I were ignorant of the truth we didn’t know how many times we were being fooled by Satan. You just see that we’ve made much money, but you don’t know how much we suffered behind the scenes. I’ve had enough of Satan’s torment, and I don’t want to live my former life anymore. Recently, through reading God’s words, I’ve understood that God rules over everyone’s fate. If we don’t believe in and worship God we will still live in emptiness no matter how much money we make. The meaning and value of our lives can’t be measured by amounts of money. I believe that with God’s grace, even if we make less money and have less material enjoyment, yet as long as we pursue the truth and live by God’s words, our lives will be happier than before.” My brother saw my resolute attitude and then spoke no more. After seeing him off, I gave a deep sigh of relief and felt very peaceful and secure in my heart.
We prayed to God and under God’s guidance, we soon sold our restaurant. The moment when the contract was signed, it felt like a very heavy weight had been lifted from me and I felt a sense of release in my heart I had never felt before. After that, my husband and I could spare some time to attend meetings and do our duties. And sometimes we would watch movies, MVs, etc. produced by The Church of Almighty God with our family. My family happily believed in and worshipped God together and I felt this was the truly happy life I had always wanted. In the past I was led astray by Satan so that I didn’t know where to turn, and couldn’t extricate myself from the vortex of pursuing money, fame and gain. Yet now I could abandon the pursuit of them with ease. This whole process was entirely because of God’s leadership and salvation. Presently, I am no longer blinded by Satan. I have found real happiness in life, and I’m walking on the right path of life.