In order not to hurt him, I had to clamp his feet with my feet. Sometimes he resisted so hard that my foot hit the leg of the table, and sometimes he even hit my head on the head, and it hurt me so much that I burst into tears.
What I’m telling is my own true story. If you are also a mother or father in pain, may my story bring you comfort and open a window into your life.
Countless sufferings I was born in Hong Kong. When he was eight years old, his father was depressed due to business failure and died of illness the following year. When I was in my fourth year of high school, my beloved mother passed away. In my grief, I began to complain that God had been so unfair to me. So from the year my mother died, I stopped participating in any activities of the church.
Since the death of my parents, I have struggled to survive on my own. I believe that “being a human being is on your own”, and I worked and Xi at the same time, completing my secondary school and nursing school courses. After graduating from nursing school, I was able to get a stable job. That was the time when I was most proud of myself because both my career and my studies were under my control. In such good times, I also decided to convert to Christianity but to be honest, I had no real faith.
I got married shortly after I started working and had two children– eldest daughter, Bowen, and youngest son, Zelin. Zelin was born in 1985, and as soon as he was born, I noticed that he had a cleft lip and a cleft palate, and his crying voice was very low, unlike that of ordinary children. It’s not like I’ve never seen such a child when I was a nurse, but I just can’t accept that my child will be one of them!
At that time, I was exhausted from taking care of Zelin every day, and it took me an hour and a half to feed alone. When some people visit, they ask me if I did something unlucky when I was pregnant, such as using scissors in bed. I didn’t know how to answer, so I had to swallow my tears.
When he was three months old, the doctor performed surgery on his lip filling. After the operation, for fear that he would touch the wound, his little hands were tied to the bed. So he cried and struggled with all his might, and the blood flowed out of his wounds and on my heart. I can only wash my face with tears every day, and I don’t know who to tell about the pain in my heart.
A year later, Zelin had another jaw filler, and after his surgery, I thought he looked good, so the family went back to church. Who expected that a wave would not settle, and a wave would rise again? Due to his hyperactivity and some out-of-the-ordinary bizarre behavior, after being examined by experts, he is suspected of having slight autism. At that time, we still took our children to Sunday worship every week, but then we left the church because we couldn’t stand the comments about him. At that time, I wondered if there was a God, and if there was a God in this world, why would He treat me like this?
Children who never speak In July 1992, my family immigrated to Perth, Western Australia. Zelin then enrolled in a local special school. Due to the change in environment, Zelin’s behavior has become very irritable. He often banged his head against the wall or punched the glass with his fist. He behaved even worse in public places, often screaming for no reason, or kicking indiscriminately, and his behavior was difficult to control. Half a year later, he was finally diagnosed as an autistic child with an “intellectual disability and no ability to speak” (Note 1). This diagnosis made our situation even worse because it led to an eighteen-month “qualified immigration” lawsuit.
Facing prosecution by the immigration authorities, my “astronaut” (Note 2) husband had to return to Australia immediately. We couldn’t work, we couldn’t leave the country, and for 18 months we went back and forth between the immigration office, the lawyer’s office, the school, and the councilor’s office every day for assistance, and the pressure was very heavy. The night before the court, our nervousness was at its peak and we couldn’t sleep. That night, my husband Zhaoqi suggested that he pray with me and ask God to keep him, but I refused. I said to him, “I don’t ask! I’ve been out of church for eight years.” If there was God, He would not pay attention to us. “I insisted on surviving on my own.
In January 1995, we finally won the case, but we used up all our savings and energy.
At the beginning of 1995, my husband returned to Hong Kong to work, and I was once again on my own. In February, Zelin made another comment on his report card: “I can’t learn Xi words at all.” This is the third time I’ve seen such comments. The first two times I didn’t focus on this because I was facing immigration lawsuits, but when this comment came up again and again, I had to face up to the problem. I thought to myself since the teacher has repeatedly said that my son is not capable of learning Xi words, it means that they are not going to teach him.
But I’m not reconciled. Zelin was nearly ten years old, and he still couldn’t speak, he couldn’t even hold a pen, and I couldn’t let his time go to waste. So I decided to ask a psychologist to introduce an expert who teaches autistic children to design a learning Xi curriculum for Zelin. The expert came three times and still couldn’t provide a substantive lesson, and his reason was that he was too busy.
Endless fighting Therefore, I had to teach Zelin personally. Since March 1, 1995, I have been collecting all kinds of pictures and pasting them on cardboard to make picture cards, word cards, etc. I spend almost a dozen hours a day preparing textbooks and reading reference books, but the most exhausting thing is that I have to fight Zelin one-on-one. Because of his poor concentration, it was very difficult at first to ask him to sit down for ten to fifteen minutes. In order to arouse his interest in learning Xi, I often switch the teaching tools such as colours, combinations and puzzles to attract his attention.
When he was obedient, I also constantly encouraged him and praised him for being a good boy. But sometimes he would lose his temper and keep patting his son, refusing to do what I asked. In this case, I grabbed his hand and forced him to do it. But this often made him even more rebellious, and he would kick the table foot violently. In order not to hurt him, I had to clamp his feet with my feet. Sometimes he resisted so hard that my foot hit the leg of the table, and sometimes he even hit my head on the head, and it hurt me to tears. Still, I had to catch him, and I would not give up until I had him finish his predetermined lessons.
I don’t know how many times during that time, after fighting with Zelin, I went back to my room hugged the pillow, and cried. At that time, my husband was worried that I would be disappointed and tearful after exhausting my energy and time, so he repeatedly advised me to take some degree courses for my future. However, whenever he mentioned it, I angrily said to him, “I am his mother, and I have no choice!”
After more than a month of training, Zelin was able to sit down for half an hour to forty-five minutes, and his progress was faster than I expected. After three months of Xi, he began to write his name, Louis. It took another month for him to learn to write his last name, Wong. By October, he was able to write simple sentences. On October 20, he wrote, “Daddy I love you!” I faxed it to my husband as soon as I saw it. When he saw the fax, he was so excited that tears welled up in his eyes, and he suddenly realized that although his son could not speak, he also had feelings. He immediately called me and told me that at the moment he was more excited than a promotion and a raise.
Ten numbers for a year While teaching Zelin to read, I also began to teach him to count and write. It took him almost a year to learn 1~10, and then the speed gradually accelerated, and it only took him a month to learn 11~20. By August 1996, he was learning to Xi simple addition problems with 1 or 2. On September 14th, I occasionally gave him some additional problems that needed to be carried out, such as 9+2, 4+8, etc., and he was able to write out the answers one by one. Since then, I have been giving him some additional problems that need to be carried in, and he can usually write the correct answers. On October 1st and 2nd, I suddenly had a few deep addition problems with two or three numbers, and reasoning problems that required the concept of multiplication, such as writing the next number after 5, 10, 15, and 20, and he was able to write the answers accurately. The only encouragement I gave him was to tap the back of his hand, which became a Xi habit every time he could concentrate on the Xi problem. Seeing him make such progress, I feel indescribably happy in my heart.
Soon after, a friend of mine, Rex, came to visit us from Canada. Rex was a zealous Christian. During my stay at home, he kept urging me to read the Bible, and I became impatient with this and turned down his offer on the pretext that I was busy. As we talked, I also constantly complained about God’s unfairness to me, and He patiently listened to my complaints. A few days later he went to a small town 400 kilometers away to visit his brother, but he still did not forget to call me every other day and continued to encourage me to read the Bible and draw closer to God. But I didn’t listen at all.
Am I going crazy? On October 24th, it occurred to me that I had never taught Zelin multiplication, so why did he have the concept of multiplication? The next week was the most exciting day of my life. Because I had to find more advanced math problems for him to do every day, I was amazed that he could accurately write the answers in two or three seconds from the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, fractions, decimals, squares, and algebra problems in the 11th grade.
I was a little overwhelmed when I saw this. My husband was on a business trip in Eastern Australia at the time, and he would call home every other day. At first, he was excited to hear that Zelin was progressing in mathematics, but when I told him that Zelin was able to do square and algebra problems, he couldn’t accept it. He is a computer engineer and has always been Xi with rational analysis of problems, and Zelin’s performance is contrary to his rationality, so he raises a large number of questions and asserts that it must be my godson’s heart, which has reached the point of going crazy. This made me very angry and told him to come back and see for himself. When he returned home, he was also amazed, and he filmed Zelin’s homework faithfully and prepared to show it to his relatives and friends in Hong Kong. He patted and muttered, “It’s.”
a real miracle!” At that time, it happened that the principal of Zelin School invited some autism experts to a meeting for Zelin’s transfer. Among them are psychologists, linguists, pediatricians, teachers of special schools, etc. I showed them the video, and when they saw it, no one could explain it. I was a little complacent, thinking that my kid might be a math genius, even though he couldn’t speak.
Write a 5 first When Rex called me on November 21, 1996, he urged me to read the Bible again, and this time I finally said yes. He suggested that I read the book of Proverbs first. The next day I read in Proverbs 22:17, “Listen to the words of the wise, and give ear to my knowledge.” ”
At around 11 o’clock, an old friend of mine, Peter, called me from Hong Kong. Peter was a doctor and a level-headed, analytical man. He told me that after watching the video my husband brought, the couple couldn’t sleep for a whole week, and they couldn’t figure it out. He didn’t think that Zelin was a genius, because geniuses were just people with special intelligence and talents, and the process of receiving things and learning Xi was shorter than that of ordinary people. However, Zelin made Xi that he had never learned, so Peter thought it might be a miracle. He suggested that I come up with some more advanced math problems such as trigonometry, geometry, or series in algebra for Zelin to do. He said, “If you give him the question “1+2+3++1000=?”, he writes a 5 as soon as he puts pen to paper, and I immediately salute him. You don’t have to ask anything more and take him back to church right away. I’m not a Christian, but I’m sure it’s a miracle. He then asked me, “You seem to have been a Christian?” and I was asked by him, and my face immediately turned red, and I replied, “I haven’t been to church for almost ten years.” ”
“Who taught you?” I told my daughter Bowen and my adopted son Zhicong about Peter’s idea, and they also thought Peter’s words were reasonable enough to try, and helped me with some math problems, including the one that Peter proposed. On November 24th, I gave these questions to Zelin. When he sat down and began to calculate, I was a little more nervous than usual, and I was anxious to know the result, so I stared at his hand tightly. I saw that after reading the question proposed by Peter, as Peter said, he wrote the word “5” in the first pen. In a panic, I immediately called my daughter. Then, I asked Zelin who taught him in the form of filler questions, and he wrote in front of me and my daughter that it was “God” who taught him. I was shocked again, and I was a little creepy on the spot. When she saw her brother’s “God,” she burst into tears, and she hurried out of the room to find the Bible.
I’ve always thought of myself as a confident person, but in the face of all this, I’ve become a little distracted and at a loss. In the past two years, I have taught him a total of simple addition and about 500 words. Everything I have taught is recorded, I have never taught him trigonometry, geometry, or algebra, so why can he answer without thinking? I have never taught him a word about religion, but how can he spell God? Seriously, even the dullest man should be awake by this time, because God has revealed to me by such a miracle. But my heart is hardened, and I can’t bow to God all at once. The first thing I thought of was my husband and Peter, and I wanted to fax them the math problems that Zelin had done and the answers he had written and hear their opinions. So I asked Zelin to rewrite the answer to who taught him math on an A4-sized piece of paper. He agreed to my request and wrote again that God had taught him.
Then I spoke on the phone with my old classmate Gao Meiyun because she often encouraged me to go to church. I used to find it annoying when she talked about the church, but now I was eager for her help. She was very excited after listening to my story, reaffirmed that it was a miracle, and decided to come to my house immediately and share the joy with me.
Then I called Rex again. This time, his usual cheerful tone became heavy. He told me that he and his brother had just been involved in a traffic accident and would have died if it weren’t for the Lord’s protection. I suddenly felt the fragility of human beings, who cannot even control their own lives. I didn’t talk to Rex about my son anymore because I felt that I could no longer rely on myself and others and that I had to go straight to God and the Lord of life.
When I decided to turn back to God, I remembered the rebellion and exaggeration I had been exaggerating all along, and my heart ached. As soon as I put down the phone, I gathered my three children and asked them if they knew of a miracle that had happened in their home, and they all said they did. I asked them to pray with me, and they agreed. So that afternoon, for the first time as a family, we prayed to God together. When I put my arms around Zelin and prayed to God, tears flowed out like a river bursting its banks. In prayer, I confessed my sins to God and resolved to repent, and I asked the Lord Jesus to be the Lord of my life and lead the way ahead of our family. After praying, my heart slowly calmed down.
Directions to all the information After a while, Miyun came, and as soon as she saw me, she came up to hug me. After that, we decided to ask Zelin a fill-in question, “Who loves Zelin the most?” and “Who is the Son of God?”, and Zelin immediately wrote “God loves Zelin the most” instead of “Mom”, and he wrote, “Jesus is the Son of God.”
After a few days, we found out that Zelin knew a lot about the Bible. My niece, who was living in my house at the time, thought that maybe God had given Zelin a lot of knowledge, and she suggested that he could be tested in every way. Over the next month, we were driven by curiosity to ask him more and more questions, many of which our friends had come up with after referring to the encyclopedia. It turned out that he could answer both natural and social science questions, and he could understand Chinese, Japanese, and French, which he had never learned. My family and I felt that we couldn’t figure out his limits with our limited knowledge.
On March 2, 1997, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Zelin wrote out a large portion of the gospel message. He wrote, “The Lord Jesus is the Son of God, who loved us and died for our sins, and who is God’s Savior for the world.” We are to let Jesus take charge of our lives. “At that time, I was taking Zelin and his Xi back to Hong Kong to visit relatives. I told my relatives and friends about this miracle, but there were still unbelievers among them. Some people also believe that whether it is Buddhism or Christianity, all religions are all persuasions to do good, and in the end they will all end up in the same way. I couldn’t agree with this because all the messages God brought to me through Zelin pointed to the Lord Jesus, so I insisted on explaining to them that the Lord Jesus is our only Savior. On March 3, 1997, I asked Zelin one last question on behalf of the crowd: “What is Buddhism?” to which Zelin replied, “Buddhism is a philosophy.” “I have never taught him the term philosophy, and he was able to express the essence of Buddhism so succinctly.
From then on, I felt that God had revealed His heart to me, and I no longer dared to question Zelin in any way.
The curse turned into a blessing Because of the misfortunes of my childhood and Zelin’s illness, I left God, and I tried to struggle on my own. I shut myself off in a state of solitude, miserable and with no one to talk to. Physically, I am a healthy person, but mentally, I look like an autistic person. For I have not seen the power of the Lord, nor heard his loving cry. I was like a sheep wandering apart, lost, wounded, trapped among thorns and unable to save myself. However, my Lord did not forsake me, but He took the initiative to find me and bandage my wounds so that I could experience His love again.
In the past, I used to complain about fate, feeling that my life was full of curses, as if anything unfortunate would happen to me. But today, I feel that all curses have turned into blessings. I wouldn’t have the fortitude to teach Zelin without the hardships of my childhood, and without Zelin I might never have returned to the Lord and enjoyed His love.
My whole being has changed dramatically. As Zelin wrote, he was an instrument of God, but he was still an autistic child, and I still had to face him every day, and my difficulties in life were not diminished. But because I know that I have the Lord’s presence and the support of my brothers and sisters every day, I no longer feel alone. No matter what happens, I have peace in my heart, and this peace from the bottom of my heart cannot be taken away from me.
Over the past few years, I have been invited to speak about my experience at evangelistic conferences in Australia, Hong Kong, and Canada, and have led more than 100 people to become believers. My family’s story was also filmed on video by the Hong Kong Evangelical Communication Centre and circulated more widely. I also go to help some families who have the same experience, so that they can have hope again, smile, and find meaning in life. To this end, I have been invited to Hong Kong and Canada many times to hold seminars on home learning Xi for autistic children for parents of children with autism, and also conduct individual counseling. In March 2000, Hong Kong Breakthrough Publishing House published a book I wrote about home studies for autistic children, Xi titled “Breaking Through Barriers”, so that more families could get help.
I used to cry and complain a lot because I had unspeakable worries and pains in my heart. I still cry sometimes today, but it is because I am touched by the love of the Lord. Dear readers, I hope that you will experience the love of the Lord as much as I did. As Pastor Ouyang of Perth Alliance Church wrote in the preface to my book “Extraordinary Testimony”: “Stories do not have to be accompanied by lessons, nor may they be prescribed according to prescriptions, but may this true story open a window into your life, let the fresh air blow in, and may he also create another miracle in your heart!” I think this is my hope and my heartfelt wish to you.
My family is a missionary family, and both parents are very devout Christians. I grew up attending Sunday school, attending Sunday services, and daily family services. Sometimes I was so unhappy that I could barely sit and listen to the long sermon, but before I knew it, I had absorbed a lot of the Lord’s teachings. Even after I married Mr. Jiang, I didn’t have a second birth. I intellectually believe in the divinity of Christ, and I believe that Jesus came into the world to redeem sinners, but that doesn’t matter to me personally. Although he died for me, and for the people of the world, this fact has no special meaning for me. As for sin, everyone is a sinner, and I will never be worse than the average man!
The first spiritual turnaround
My mother’s relationship with the Lord was not like this, she lived a life very close to God, and she used to spend hours in prayer and fellowship with the Lord. At that time, whenever we were in trouble, we always asked her to pray for us.
My mother’s death was a great blow to each of her children, but perhaps the hardest blow to me, for I was her youngest daughter, and I relied on her more than I ever knew.
At that time, in addition to the threat of Japanese aggression, Mr. Chiang added another burden, that is, to put an end to the civil strife in the country at that time. At the same time, the Yellow River overflowed, and a large number of people were threatened with famine. Over the years, I have worked closely with Mr. Chiang to achieve his goal of building a unified and modern China. At this time, I was disheartened and almost despaired by many difficulties, but my mother was no longer in the world and could not pray for us every day. What should I do? Who can I turn to for help? Looking back now, I understand that this was my first spiritual turnaround.
Before Mr. Chiang married me, he promised my mother a Bible study, and he faithfully kept that promise. Before my mother died, she led Mr. Chiang to the official conversion. Later, he continued to study the Bible on his own every day to understand the complex truths of the Old Testament, which was a difficult task, because few pieces of Bible history could be appreciated by someone who had not grown up in a Christian environment. When I saw him trying to find out in the midst of difficulties, I knew I should help him, as my mother had always done.
When I was a student at Wesleyan University in the United States, I took a course called “Old Testament History.” So I used my old notes and textbooks and began to have a daily Bible study with him, and we still maintain this Xi to this day. Every morning at 6:30 a.m., we prayed, read the Bible, and discussed each other’s experiences. Every night before going to bed, we also prayed together.
Woman guardsman
In 1936, Mr. Chiang was abducted by his subordinates in Xi’an. At that time, it turned out that this spiritual Xi every morning was a stone that supported and strengthened him. Although he was in terrible mental anguish, in danger of dying at any moment, and because of the fall on his body during the disaster, he was very safe during that period of abduction. His captors kept him in solitary confinement for ten days, preventing him from communicating with the outside world. At that time, the whole world was shocked, and the people of the whole country demanded that his captors immediately release him safely.
Later, I finally managed to get on a plane to Xi’an, with him. When his captor allowed me to meet him, he was amazed as if he had seen a ghost. When he had calmed down, he showed me a Bible that he had read that morning: “The LORD hath made a new thing on the earth, that women are guarding men. 【Jeremiah 31:22】No wonder he and I have been so faithful to this day
God’s entrustment
In 1949, when the situation in China changed, and soon after I arrived in Taiwan, I felt that God had called me to organize a prayer group. At the time, I was terrified of it. I felt very uncomfortable and tried to evade this responsibility. I was afraid that my friends would think I was overly religious, just as I had thought of my mother before. Isn’t it strange that most of us are naturally silent about our love for family or friends, but we are the least willing to be known about our devotion to Christ! For it is only by repeatedly affirming our faith that we can maintain a living love.
So I invited five friends, all of whom were devout Christians, to my new home. I told them that from that day on I wanted to have a prayer meeting. I mentioned the promise of Jesus Christ that if two or three men gather together in His name, He is in the midst of them. If they agree, we can pray together for the fate of China and the world.
Chinese Women’s Prayer Society
Since then, we have held prayer meetings every Wednesday afternoon for five years without interruption. In the beginning, we had to overcome a feeling of unease in which we were all shy at first, some of us who had never prayed out loud in public, and friends who had always known each other suddenly became strangers to God. But God finally took charge of leading the meeting, giving the Holy Spirit a real presence with us, filling the room from time to time.
Every year at Easter, our prayer service holds a Good Friday service, which is broadcast on TV. We highlight the events that took place after Jesus’ crucifixion, when the apostles, except Judas Iscariot, who hanged himself in shame, became veritable spiritual greats with amazing leadership skills. Although they were persecuted and tormented, they preached the gospel everywhere and fought for the kingdom of righteousness. Far from being scattered like a flock of lost sheep without a shepherd, these very few Christians formed a tightly knit and invincible community, so much so that they were outweighed by the power of the entire Roman Empire under terrible oppression. Why can’t we be like them with zealous and fearless, but timid, lifeless Christians who don’t even know what they believe?
The Gospels record that during His work, Jesus Christ often had to leave the crowd to fellowship with God the Father. He did it not only alone, but also with his disciples. As he is the Son of God, and as he needs prayer to renew his spiritual power, it is only natural that we need to pray all the more—to pray together, to pray aloud, to pray with urgent zeal and desire for God’s will to be done.
Each of us takes turns leading the weekly prayer meetings. The meeting usually begins with two minutes of silent prayer, followed by the singing of a few favorite hymns, followed by a reading of a passage by the presiding person and her personal spiritual testimony of the passage, followed by a public discussion of the topic. After that, each of the participants proposes to pray for something or someone in particular. We knelt down religiously, and two or three of us prayed in turn, as the Holy Spirit led. We don’t have a set routine, because we feel that spontaneity and variety of changes are more likely to arouse our enthusiasm. However, at the end of each time, we will pray for the future of China and world peace according to God’s will.
Experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit
In one of the first meetings, a presiding officer asked everyone who had experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit to raise their hands, and I didn’t raise my hands. It wasn’t until later that I came to know the Holy Spirit who dwelt in me. The facts are as follows:
One day, I was reading a passage about the crucifixion of the Lord, and I stopped when I read that a soldier had stabbed him in the side with a spear, and blood and water were coming out of the wound. I’d read it many times before, and I’d never been particularly moved, but this time I cried. That day, for the first time, I realized that he had suffered these pains for me. I cried and cried, and I felt deeply unworthy of my humility. It was a very peculiar feeling, a mixture of great sorrow and great comfort. I rarely cried because we grew up Xi not show our emotions. But that time the tears flowed like a tide, and I couldn’t hold back. At the same time, I felt a light and relieved feeling that my sins had been washed away by tears.
On that occasion, I experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and from that day on, I did not believe only in my mind, but personally connected with my Lord. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, and the old things have passed away, and they have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
My view of religion
My personality does not like the mysterious, but I love the practical, the things that can be seen in the world, I believe it, otherwise I don’t believe it, and I may not also admit what others admit, in other words, the religion that suits my father may not necessarily move me, the only palatable religion, like a sugar-coated pill, I don’t believe in.
I know that my mother’s life is very close to God, I know the greatness of my mother, and when I was a child, I was somewhat reluctant to accept the religious training that my mother forced me to, but I believe that this training had a great impact on me. At that time, I was often tired of family prayers, so I used my thirst as an excuse to sneak outside, which often annoyed my mother. At that time, like my brothers and sisters, I had to go to church often, and I hated the long lectures, but today I think that this Xi of going to church often has cultivated my perseverance, which is thankful training.
The mother’s personality shows her sternness and strength everywhere, and it is not feminine. My mother’s prayers were the most impressive part of my childhood, and she used to shut herself up in a room on the third floor and hold prayers for long periods, sometimes before dawn. If we have any problems to solve, Mother will say to us, “Let me go and ask God. We can’t rush her to answer immediately, because asking God is not something that can be done in five minutes, and we must be patient and wait for God’s revelation. But strangely enough, whatever the Mother prays to God to decide, the result is good.
So after my mother passed away, I often thought to myself that my spiritual life would gradually grow. To put it more bluntly, I think God called my mother to enable her children to be self-reliant. When my mother was alive, I often thought that whatever I should or shouldn’t do, my mother would pray to God and inquire about God on my behalf. Although she insisted that we must pray for ourselves, that she could not be our intermediary, I am sure that she had prayed for us for so many long periods that it was for us, perhaps because such a mother was associated with religion in my heart, I could not give it up in any way.
Before I conclude this prayer question, I would like to tell you a lesson I learned from my mother. She was bedridden by then, not long before the day she died. At that time, Japan began to plunder the three eastern provinces of our country. We kept the details of this incident a secret from our mother, and one day I happened to talk to her about the eagerness of the Japanese to coerce us, I was so excited that I could not control myself, and suddenly I cried out in a loud voice:
“Mother, your prayers are powerful, why don’t you pray to God to punish Japan with an earthquake or something like that?” She turned her face around for a moment, and then looked at me with a serious gaze, “When you pray, or ask me to pray for you, don’t insult God with such a request, we mortals should not have such intentions, let alone pray to God?”
I have been deeply affected, and I know that the Japanese people have suffered a lot because of the government’s fallacy of actions against China, so I can now pray for the Japanese people.
In the past seven years, I have been pessimistic. The four richest provinces in the northeast were taken away by the enemy, and the people were suffering from floods, droughts, and famines. On the personal side, the sad experience of the death of a pious and loving mother made me see the shortcomings of life and the difficulties of human affairs. We work hard for the country, like a drop in the bucket, to no avail, I feel that life in the torrent of history is as small as a drop in the ocean. Sometimes I say to myself, “If the country is really strong and unified, what will happen to us? Is there no end to everything in the world?
Looking back on my married life over the years, my relationship with religion can be divided into three stages: the first stage is my extreme zeal and patriotism, that is, I want to do something for the country. I have a good opportunity, and if I work with my husband, it will not be difficult for me to contribute to the country. Although I have such ambitions, he relies on himself, and I lack a kind of mental concentration.
This is followed by the second phase. The sorrows I have said above have made me disappointed, pessimistic, depressed, and negative. Until my mother died, I felt that it was dark in front of me. There is the iron hoof of a strong enemy in the north, there is a political rift in the south, there is a drought in the northwest, there is a flood in the Yangtze River, and the dearest mother has called God again. What else do I have besides emptiness?
My mother’s religious spirit had a great influence on Chairman Chiang, and I felt very sorry that I could not encourage my husband spiritually. The chairman’s eldest lady was an ardent Buddhist, and her belief in Christianity was entirely due to my mother’s persuasion. For our marriage contract to be approved by her, the Chairman was allowed to study the doctrine of Christ and to read the Xi Bible. Later, I found out that he kept the previous covenant, and after my mother died, he did not change his original intention at all, but there were some things in the teachings that he could not understand at first, and it was very dull to read. He recites Xi’s Old Testament every day, pondering and pondering how difficult he is, so in my daily conversation, I need to solve the difficulties and show them tactfully.
So we realized that I would do my best to help my husband with his needs and that I was doing my best for the country. So I guided my husband into the spiritual garden that I knew. At the same time, I was trapped in the abyss of sorrow because of the chaos of my life, and I also wanted to find a way to extricate myself, so I unconsciously returned to the God that my mother believed in. I know that there is a power in the universe and that its greatness is by no means beyond the reach of man, and that is the power of God, and that the task of my mother to encourage the spiritual life of the chairman has been undertaken by me, and I have become closer to God day by day.
This brings us to the third stage. Everything I wish to do is out of God’s will, not my own. Life is very simple, we made it so messy and complicated, the old Chinese paintings, each with only one main subject, such as the flower painting scroll, one of which is three-dimensional, the rest is just a foil. The same is true of complex lives. So what is that flower of life? As far as I realize now, it is the will of God. But absolute piety and faithfulness are required to understand God’s will. Today’s political life is full of hypocrisy, strategy, and diplomacy, but I am convinced that these are not the most powerful weapons of politicians, but their most powerful weapons are loyalty and integrity.
In short, it seems to me that religion is a very simple thing, and its meaning is to do my best, my strength, and my will, to carry out God’s will. I believe in God, who has infinite power to help us, and whose favor is simply beyond our hopes and prayers.
Albert Einstein said, “In the history of mankind, there is only one person who can combine physical experiments, mathematical theories, and mechanical inventions into science and art — and that is Newton.” 』
Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation, invented calculus, and first proposed that visible light is composed of seven spectroscopic lights: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and red, he introduced mathematics into science, making physics and chemistry more accurate studies, and laid the foundation for mathematics to become the language for describing the motion of the universe in Newton’s three laws of motion mechanics. His outstanding achievements have earned him the title of “the most outstanding scientist in history” and “the father of modern physics”.
There are many biographies of Newton on the market, most of which praise Newton’s scientific achievements or refer to the apple that fell to the ground, but omit or distort Newton’s beliefs.
For example, when Newton explained why there is gravitational force in the universe, he based on a scientific hypothesis that “there may be a substance in the universe called ether, which is the conduction of gravity.” As a result, it is translated in this book: “There are gods in the universe, and the gods are the conveyors of gravity.” It just twisted Newton into a polytheist.
Hannah’s Prayer Newton was born at midnight on December 25, 1642, and was born prematurely. At that time when infant mortality was high, it was rare for a premature baby to survive. Newton’s father was an illiterate farmer, and together with his strong-minded wife, Hannah Ayscough, ran a small farm in Woolsthorpe, England, and both belonged to the ‘Puritans’ – a group of staunch Christians.
Three months before Newton was born, his father died of illness, and the small farm lacking manpower did not produce a harvest, and the family was even poorer. When Newton was born, his family was so disrespected, that he could not afford to buy nourishment to feed this premature child. Hannah had just lost her husband, and when her only child was about to die, she remembered that there was a woman named Hannah in the Bible who prayed to God in her sorrow: “If thou wilt look upon thy servant’s afflictions, and thou wilt remember thy servant and give me a son, I will give him to thee all the days of thy life.” 1 Samuel 1:11
Newton’s mother held her premature baby in her arms and prayed the same prayer to God. Throughout Newton’s life, his mother’s prayer had a profound impact on his personality and faith. The earliest record of Newton’s upbringing is his prayers, which he often wrote in the margins of his class notes, such as in 1662 when he was a sophomore in college:
My God! If my heart is inclined to evil, do not fulfill me, do not allow me to live by my faith alone, and do not use love for God as an excuse for my unloving love. Not to follow you for blessings, not to desire you only in the church. Let me be a man who fears you, and because I fear you, I am not afraid of men.
Newton often wondered if God had listened to his mother’s prayers and that God had kept him alive because there must have been something he had to do.
When Newton was three years old, his family was so poor that his mother had to marry a 63-year-old widower from a neighboring village, the Rev. Barnabas Smith. Reverend Smith raised Newton on a meager salary, and when he died eight years later, the mother and son received some pensions, and Newton had to watch the cattle and horses after class to make ends meet.
Newton’s Kite The village of Ustopp, where Newton lived, was the most famous place in Britain for the production of horse-drawn carriages. Most of the children here want to be coachmen when they grow up. Newton was different, he had a quiet personality, and Pastor Smith in particular left him a large pile of books on the Bible, theology, poetry, mathematics, history, law, mechanics, etc., which became the best treasures in his home. He often reads books in the attic where he collects them and even takes them with him when he watches the cows and horses. His mother watched quietly and noticed that the child was different.
When Newton entered secondary school, he began to show his special talent.
When many students immediately started cutting paper and tying brackets, Newton first put a piece of paper on his desk, carefully designed the size of the kite, and did some calculations before starting to do it. He was the slowest in his kite, but when he tried to fly, the whole class startled even his teacher, Stokes: how could Newton’s kite fly so high and so fast?
Afterward, Mr. Stockx told Newton’s mother that the child should go to college anyway. Hannah smiled: she had already prepared this child’s college tuition.
In June 1661 Newton entered Cambridge University. At that time, it was popular for Cambridge students to drink and play cards, calling it “pure entertainment”. Newton was a poor student, his mother saved only enough money to pay for his tuition, and he had to work as an assistant to his teacher in experiments to earn a living. In this way, he inadvertently brought him close to the excellent professors of Cambridge at that time, and inherited the essence of the research of these professors throughout his life, which became Newton’s later famous quote: “I see farther than others because I stand on the shoulders of giants. 』
The excellence of a university is determined by three conditions: first, the quality of teachers, second, the library and equipment, and third, the temperament of the school’s buildings and campus. The first is the most important. Many people enter the university without strolling through the corridors of the university and do not wander around the university grass to breathe academic freedom, which is a waste of university resources.
The studious Newton not only did not waste any resources at Cambridge University but also met good teachers who influenced him throughout his life.
Newton’s Calligraphy
Henry More was the teacher who had the deepest influence on Newton’s science and faith.
Moore, a mathematician, and a devout Christian, said, “God created this world to make people know it, to seek Him, to thank it. It is arrogant for anyone to despise the marvelous creatures of this world and to see what the world does not have to be miraculous. Moore believes that the purpose of putting mathematics in education is: “Education is a kind of moral and intellectual cultivation, and the mathematics curriculum is designed to train students to think more precisely.” Long-term mathematics education is a stressful exercise for students, to stimulate a person’s hard work. It is with hard work that a person can keep to the moral code for a long time, and the moral code comes from God. Therefore, mathematics education and faith go hand in hand. 』
Professor Moore, with a teacher’s keen intuition for his students, immediately noticed Newton’s difference. He found that before the beginning of each semester, Newton used the vacation to read all the textbooks that were going to be classed, and by the time the class started, Newton was already reading more advanced research reports than that class.
Newton himself wrote, “When I walk into a classroom, I often find that I know more about the content than my teacher. This kind of calligraphy would have put a lot of pressure on the average teacher, but Moore turned to Newton and gave him more in-depth books, such as Kepler’s “Optics” and Sanderson’s “Logic,” and made his 1,800 books “a library open to Newton at any time.” Moore also paid Newton’s living expenses for a long time.
In addition to his different approach to reading, Newton, because of his family’s poverty, carefully kept a record of his expenses, and he believed that “prudence with money is the basic Xi of the Christian life.”
Newton often wrote his prayers in his diary or on the empty pages of his textbooks, some of which are still preserved in the British Museum. He wrote: “It is dishonest and human cowardice to attempt to substitute one’s efforts for God’s blessings with fervent prayer. I don’t think Newton would have given the kind of testimony that I prayed and got what I just read last night, because then God would be so unfair to the students who usually work hard. Grounded faith is not a shortcut to success.
The pleasure of money was a great attraction to a poor student, and Newton wrote, ‘Lord, forgive me! ‘My heart desires to make money more than it desires your presence—but my heart is reunited with you at the Sunday bread-breaking (sacrament) meeting. Newton and his roommate Wirkkins often distributed Bibles to the poor outside of school, evangelizing them, and buying Bibles to distribute became the biggest expense of Newton’s student life, in addition to rent and food.
Apple & Garden
In 1664, Newton began to use his spare time to conduct his research. He first studied the structure of light with a prism and found that the spectroscopy of light has different refractive indexes.
Between 1665 and 1667, the terrible Black Death occurred in England, killing many people. The university announced the closure of classes, and the government ordered that no one should travel far from their homes to avoid spreading or contracting the Black Death. When the whole country was shrouded in the shadow of the Black Death, Newton wrote afterward that the more than two years of no classes and nowhere to go were “the moment when his life thought was at its peak.” At this time, he created a very important math called calculus, from the solution of infinite proportional series.
When Newton was asked afterward why he had made such a great discovery, Newton replied, “I always put the subject of my thoughts in front of me like a painting, and sketched it out bit by bit, until the whole painting slowly came to the fore.” This requires a long period of silence and constant meditation. 』
Newton’s contemplation of science is inextricably linked to his prayer life. He often thinks of science in the contemplation of faith, and in the contemplation of science, he thinks of faith. In 1666 he began to think about the movement of the earth in orbit and calculate the relationship between gravity and centrifugal force during its rotation, and in 1669 he wrote down his discovery in his notebook, the Law of Gravity. Did you know that without this immutable law in the universe, all objects, as small as a grain of sand or as large as a planet, would be flying around and becoming chaos.
When did Newton discover the law of gravitation? His friend Stukeley replied, ‘Newton used to walk in the garden, and one day at noon he came back and told me that he saw an apple fall to the ground and thought of gravity. This apple later became a symbol of Newton’s discovery of gravity, and more importantly, Newton had a Xi of coming alone to the garden to pray and meditate.
In his book “A Biography of Newton” in 1968, Manuel, a professor of history at New York University, wrote: “Modern science is derived from Newton’s meditation on God.”
Ah, the principle!
At that time, many scientists and professors could not understand Newton’s outstanding discovery, and even ridiculed it as: “Another set of clichés to explain astronomy.” Thankfully, I had the support of Isaac Barrow.
He was one of the leading professors of mathematics and astronomy at Cambridge University, one of the few people who could carefully verify Newton’s ideas of mathematics and physics, and was also a Christian. He came to Newton and privately imposed the strictest requirements on this best student. Béjo asked Newton: “Go back to the most basic assumptions of physics, test each one with precision, again and again, almost endlessly, and put all your energy into it, so as not to waste it on useless sesame trifle.” He then asked for retirement so that Newton, who was only twenty-seven years old, would succeed him as a professor at Cambridge University.
The faculty at Cambridge was not Newton’s sweet spot. As soon as Newton took over, he immediately experienced many factional disputes and personnel disputes in the so-called academic freedom and independent university, and Newton, who liked to think quietly and was unsociable, was also excluded as a marginal person outside the power circle.
Newton’s old friend Wirkkins wrote: ‘Newton looked more lonely and silent, less than thirty years old, with his hair half-white. 』
Newton was determined not to get involved in these disputes, he fixed his eyes on eternity, no matter what people judged or slandered him, and only focused his efforts on scientific research and faith in Christ, and did not fall into self-pity after being slandered. Newton wrote: ‘My heart is always earnest and quiet, and does not fall into melancholy. 』
Slowly, he developed deeper reflections and experimental results into his masterpiece Principle. The book not only records Newton’s scientific discoveries, but also repeatedly mentions the relationship between his “mechanistic theory” and God, saying that the difference between true and false gods is that false gods do not control the universe, have no immutable will, have no final judgment, and belong to perishable creation.
The word “dominant” is constantly mentioned in the book, and he thinks that it is the most sacred and wonderful of God’s attributes, so that those who seek it can understand, and that mechanism is God’s law in charge of the universe, and that God has placed in the universe to make people understand his power. Albert Einstein said, “The most mysterious thing in the universe is that man can understand the universe.” 』
In his book Principia, Newton wrote: Just as a man born blind does not understand light, we cannot understand the wisdom and omnipotence of God. The image of God is not seen, heard, or touched, nor can it be represented by the corrupt false gods of the world, but we can only know Him in all His creation, God is still in power, and we are all under God’s control. False gods, on the other hand, have no authority, no eternal care, and no beginning of creation, but nothingness, finiteness, and nature as they are. Because of God’s sovereignty, we call Him Lord. We are His servants, but we are limited and incomplete.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death In 1672 Newton joined the Royal Society of Science, the highest scientific research association in the country. The publication of Principia was a great shock to the scientific community throughout Europe, drawing praise and criticism. Nevertheless, Newton proposed in the Royal Society of Science the “principle of elliptical orbits of the planets” (1676-1677) and “mathematical proof of universal gravitation” (1680-1684).
Aston, a student of Newton, later wrote: “Newton spoke cautiously and slowly. He tried his best to avoid conflicts of will, did not see profit and forgot righteousness, did not flatter people, and preferred to endure insults in silence rather than wear full armor to fight with others. Newton said, ‘If a man can’t control his temper, his temper will control you.’ Newton’s life was guided by faith, not by his volatile temper. 』
Newton was not a perennial winner in scientific research. He studied experimental chemistry for a long time from 1669 to 1691 and made no discoveries, but he became acquainted with Boyle, known as the “father of modern chemistry”, and the two corresponded for sixteen years.
The elder and godly Boyle not only helped Newton in his research, but his example strengthened Newton’s faith at a time when Newton was under heavy criticism.
As an outstanding scientist, Newton liked to openly confess his beliefs, and he had a personality that was not good at socializing with people and liked to work quietly alone.
At that time, religious elements attacked him for having first-rate science but third-rate theology; scientific elements attacked him for having first-rate theology but third-rate science; political elements attacked him for being third-rate in science, theology, and interpersonal relations; some people slandered him for his mental inadequacy when they saw that he was filial to his mother and never married; some people still say that Newton had a mother-love complex; and some people say that he is homosexual because he is good to his students. These relentless attacks drove Newton almost insane.
In 1692, Professor Biot from Geneva denounced Newton as the ‘Prophet of London’, saying, ‘Newton’s law of gravitation is a meditation on religion, not a scientific discovery…… He had to make it clear that if it was science, don’t write about how God is, and if it’s about God, don’t put it in the category of science. 』
As soon as Beit opened fire, many people besieged Newton in groups. Newton, who usually did not think of defense, stood almost naked on the execution ground of science, receiving merciless attacks. On September 30, 1693, Newton wrote: “I am in a state of extreme sorrow. For the past twelve months, I have had no intention of eating and unable to sleep peacefully, my heart is shaken and I cannot think. 』
The relentless attacks continued, and in 1694 Newton was slandered for having sex with a woman, and in 1695 Newton was almost insane, and Newton was rumored to have died everywhere. Newton was speechless and withdrawn from the crowd, writing: “John Spencer’s book The laws of Hebrews was a consolation in my troubles. 』
After the King of England stepped in and appointed him President of the Royal Society, these attacks suddenly disappeared.
In the decades that followed, Newton insisted on establishing an “honest system” for the scientific community, drawing on the experience of the past two and a half years of vilification, and he was the best model.
To be an honest scientist was the best persuasion Boyle gave to Newton and all subsequent scientists before his death (1691), when Boyle wrote: ‘I am old, and it is time for me to write down what I know about chemistry. Some of this knowledge is the result of years of experimentation, and some of it is the result of careful discussion with others. I wrote down as much as I could, and I tried my best to write down some of the things that were difficult to understand so that those who came after me could judge them carefully. I write down the details of each research one by one and effectively pass on the knowledge through true and unfalsified records.
But despite all my efforts, I still can’t get a full picture of my knowledge. Now, I put the fruits of my life in your hands, and may you be like connoisseurs who appraise works of art. At that moment, it was a gift of my deep love for humanity and chemistry. 』
Don’t let other people’s mistakes become your stumbling blocks. Suffering did not leave Newton. At the end of the seventeenth century, Christians claiming to be prophets sent by God cried out, “The end of the world is coming.” This wave of “doomsday theory” came from Cevennes, France, and burned through the cities of England like wildfire. Many rose up and chimed in, claiming to have seen visions of a ship laden with blood flying through the streets of England, and some said that many people were seen lying on the beach with blood as a harbinger of God’s coming judgment.
In a short period, thousands of peddlers followed the prophets of the last days, and even some of the best scientists of the Royal Academy of Sciences flocked to him because a good scientist could also fall into the mire of heresy because of his ignorance of religion.
Newton himself was a Christian, he studied the books of Daniel and Revelation for a long time and believed that the world mentioned in the Bible has an end day, that is, Christ Jesus will come to judge, but no one knows which day it is, and the correct attitude in the face of the end times should be more gratitude than fear, more calmness than evasion. So he disapproved of these prophets who were preaching the end times. He believed that godly faith was temperate rather than indulgent in zeal, genuinely filled with the Holy Spirit, and motivated by the Spirit of God, not by the almost hypnotic and suggestive teachings of self-proclaimed prophets.
Newton’s opposition to these prophets immediately drew bitter criticism and rebuke from many radical Christians. This misunderstanding broke Newton’s heart. It was during this time that Newton had a long period of wavering faith in his life (1698-1707). For Christians, merciless curses from other Christians are more painful than being hurt by ordinary people. Hurt can easily lead people to extremes, and many people later want to prove that Newton was an atheist or an agnostic, which is a quote from Newton’s words and deeds during this period. However, the growth of faith is not always smooth sailing, and there will inevitably be frequent adversities.
In 1707 the King of England decreed that these so-called ignorants, who had used religion for too many illicit gains, be sent to prison in London. The end of the world has not yet come, but theirs has come first. Since then, the winds of the last days have gradually subsided.
The Boy Who Picks Up Shells Time is often the best healing agent. Newton returned from his misery became stronger in his faith, and was able to distinguish between the truth and the extreme, to submit to the difference between biblical truth and human speech, and to rethink physics, mathematics, and optics. In the reprint of the Principia, he wrote: “It is my greatest joy in publishing this book to let people know that I am doing this great work with faith in God. 』
In his later years, Newton became famous in Europe and his contributions were widely recognized. His greatest pleasure in old age was to play with children, and one day he said to his little nephew, ‘I don’t know what the world will think of me, for to me I am like a boy playing on the beach, and I am pleasant to stumble upon a round stone and a beautiful shell, but there are still as many stones and shells as the sea before me. 』
Newton died on March 20, 1727, and in his later years wrote: “Hold fast to the redemptive truth and greatest commandment of Jesus Christ no matter the circumstances—to love your neighbor as yourself. 』
As a Hong Kong female singer and actress, Zhou Huimin grew up in a Christian family and participated in campus fellowship, but in the ups and downs of life, she brushed shoulders with faith many times until she truly received this grace and returned to the arms of her Heavenly Father in 2009.
After the faith, Zhou Huimin’s life was completely renewed and changed, she was enthusiastic about her faith, and even made a comeback, returning to the entertainment industry, not only releasing her first gospel album “HIM”, singing for God, but also joining the new movie “Waiting for a Person’s Coffee” in 2014, and the theme song “Coffee is Waiting for a Person” is also a song of the gospel disc.
On January 1, 2015, “Angel Heart” published the cover story of the January issue, entitled “Grace is waiting for a person – Zhou Huimin”, in which she explained the ups and downs of her life and how to meet the wonderful experience of grace, which is tortuous and wonderful.
Spend your childhood in worry
In the magazine, Zhou Huimin mentioned her childhood, which was supposed to be the happiest and carefree period, but Vivian was the opposite, she was a girl with a lot of worries when she was a child. Since she was a child, she would worried about her mother’s health and worry about practical problems in life, and spent her childhood in anxiety.
When her father died of a heart attack, Vivian had not yet been born, so she never saw her father and the whole family was supported by her mother alone. In the washing and polishing of the cruel reality, Zhou’s mother became serious, not smiling, stubborn, and played the role of the head of the family, while Vivian’s grandmother played the role of a mother, not only very gentle but also laughed with her, so the optimistic part of her personality was influenced by her grandmother.
However, when Vivian was less than 10 years old, her mother fell ill and needed surgery urgently, which could be life-threatening, which made her very panicked, and during the long wait for her mother’s surgery, she thought about many things: Will she never see her mother again after the operation? Grandma is old, if her mother has any strengths and weaknesses, who will take care of herself? and so on.
Fortunately, the surgery was a success and her mother gradually recovered, but Vivian still worries about her health from time to time. She knows that her mother works hard, so as not to worry about her mother anymore, she will automatically do her homework consciously after class, go to bed very early at night, and gradually develop a stubborn character behind self-discipline.
Because there is no man in the family, when she grows up, the responsibility of supporting the family gradually falls on the seemingly weak Vivian, but she is very stubborn in her bones. Because she doesn’t want anything wrong, people like her tend to be more anxious than the average person.
Since she was a child in a Christian school, Vivian has always been involved in school fellowship, but she knows little about faith and does not take it too seriously, but because of the difficulties she will encounter in life, she gradually develops the Xi habit of praying, although she is not sure whether God is listening, but she has no one to talk to, so she has to express her heart in prayer.
First time going to church: Heavenly Father, I’m home
Vivian, who has always been Xi to relying on herself, went out to work in her teens after graduation and felt that she could not be bullied and must be self-reliant, so she was in a state of “fighting” for a long time. In a testimony she wrote on Christmas Day 2013, she said that relying on others or religion is an act of weakness.
Until one day in 2009, a casual conversation with a friend turned her life around. “That day, I had a casual conversation with a friend who had no religious beliefs, and he said that many religions focus on personal cultivation, but those self-imposed standards are indicators that are difficult for mortals to achieve. Christianity emphasizes ‘salvation by faith,’ but I have a hard time accepting this argument because this kind of free salvation is completely contrary to my usual beliefs.
But when I think deeper, if what the Bible says is true, then no matter how good my cultivation is, because I have not accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I am still a sinner; even if what the Bible says is not true, I actually have no loss after reading the Bible, and my cultivation will only improve, not regress. I shouldn’t judge what I don’t understand, but I am only qualified to judge when I read the whole Bible and go back to church to hear the pastors preach. ”
It was this mindset of learning a little more that suddenly swelled up in Vivian’s heart, wanting to understand this belief that she had previously held biases. At the same time, she also told her husband Ni Zhen about this idea and received support.
Vivian’s first visit to church was at the Easter service in 2009, when she was so excited that she struggled to suppress her tears. She turned to God in her heart and said, “Father, I’m home!
Witness to faith through music
When she got to know God again, Vivian knew that her singing gift came from God, so she was willing to sing for God, hoping to interpret God’s faith through her music. When she conceived the gospel album, the words of the Bible became her inspiration, and she knew that the gospel disc was made for “God”, so the album was titled “HIM”, which means God. In this album, each song conveys a different theme: judgment, gender relations, life and death, and the heart of a child.
This was the first time Vivian had written a song for God, and she wanted to write about the title “Ribs” from the very beginning. “God created Adam first, saying that it was not good for the man to live alone, and decided to create a spouse to help him, and I realized that this woman was created to fulfill Adam, and in other passages of the Bible, the husband is described as the head of the wife, so I understand that a wife needs to be wise to submit to her husband’s leadership. And how did God make the woman? He put Adam to sleep and took out a rib to create a woman, and Adam woke up and said, “This woman is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, so husbands should love their wives as they love their bodies.” As I studied this passage in detail, I gained a deeper understanding of the roles of men and women and how partners treat each other. ”
In addition, she composed a song “A Love Like This”, which counted the grace in her life. On January 8, 2015, she wrote on Weibo, “After writing the song “A Love Like This” last year, my intuition is very compatible with the English lyrics, writing about grace and faith to change my life, and the music part is conceived to tie Him, a fresh and simple arrangement so that the vocal’s feelings can be highlighted. ”
Vivian put a lot of effort into making this gospel disc. She mentioned the creative team in a video posted on Weibo on January 9, admitting that although the creative team is not all Christians, the requirement for choosing a lyricist is that she must be familiar with the Bible, because ordinary unbelievers may feel that Christianity, like other religions, leads people to goodness. But in fact, many Christian values are not universal values, so as the creative supervisor of the whole album, she must make sure that the lyrics are correct and do not misinterpret the Christian faith. To this end, Vivian spent a lot of time writing the concepts behind each track, and communicating with the lyricists.
It took a whole year from the preparation to the production of the gospel album, and Vivian admits that she has experienced a lot of waiting and a lot of struggle. On January 9, 2015, “Zhou Huimin Idea Studio” Weibo posted a video of Genesis TV’s interview with Love Earth Observatory “Zhou Huimin Sings for HIM”, in which Vivian talked about her process of recording the album. “I want each song to be produced by a different person, to be able to record in different studios, so that Xi can learn to let go of the old way of recording over the years and open myself up to work with the team instead of being the controller. I have experienced a lot of struggles in the process, because I am a very demanding person, and I have to let go of myself and accept other people’s opinions humbly in teamwork, so when there is a break in the studio, I will calm down and pray, and give everything to God, because I don’t want to be a disc that makes a singer, this is a disc that makes someone else. ‘HIM’, or God, is the protagonist of this disc. ”
She also talked about how to face criticism after public belief because she is an artist, “Since I have faith, I have found that I don’t worry too much about people’s criticism of me, and I won’t pursue it according to world values or universal values, because I won’t measure it according to this ruler.” I don’t use my standards to ask others, which is a big change for me. ”
At the same time, she also mentioned that one of the songs in the gospel album, “Stone Rain”, is precisely about the judgment of the world, inspired by a well-known biblical story: the story of a woman who committed adultery and was stoned by people. “A lot of people say I’m an artist, will I be hypocritical? Some people will say that an artist is a hypocritical person. Sometimes I think about this story, I think people who believe in the Lord understand very well that everyone is full of a lot of sin, and if we are all full of a lot of sin, what right do we have to comment on others? So in the title of each song, you can bring out a lot of thinking. Vivian added.
In the final video, it says, “May Vivian be able to use her gifts to do more beautiful testimonies.” I believe that this is also the expectation and blessing that God and every Christian expect from her.
另外她还作了一首《A Love Like This》,内容数算了她生命中的恩典。2015年1月8日,她在微博上写道,“去年写了《A Love Like This》的曲后,直觉很配英文歌词,写恩典和信仰给我生命的改变,而音乐部分构思以结祂为主,清新和简单一点的编曲效果,令vocal的感情可以突出一点。”
由筹备到制作福音专辑,足足花了一整年,Vivian不讳言经历过很多等待、很多挣扎。2015年1月9日,“周慧敏主意工作室”微博发布了创世电视访问——爱地球观察站《周慧敏为 HIM 唱歌》的视频,其中,Vivian谈到自己录制这张专辑的过程。“我希望每首歌都由不同的人去监制,能在不同的录音室录歌,从而学习放下自己过往多年来的一套固有录音模式,开放自己去配合团队,不要成为操控者。过程中经历过很大的挣扎,因为我是一个很高要求的人,团队合作中必须要放下自我,谦卑地去接受别人的意见,所以在录音室当一有break,我便会静下来祷告,把一切交托给上帝,因为我不要做一张造就歌手的碟,这是一张造就别人的碟。‘HIM’,即上帝,才是这张碟的主角。”
According to Chengshang Daily, Wang Leehom uses 90% of his money for charity, only a small part of it is used to make music, and it is other people’s money to make movies. The Bible says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is.” It is enough to see Leehom Wang’s energy and ambition to put into charity. Speaking of “charity”, Leehom Wang has endless topics, in addition to donations, Leehom Wang has also adopted 20 children, and after that, he will continue to adopt.
Growing up in a Christian family, Leehom Wang has enjoyed the love of the Lord Jesus since he was a child, and he has seen the precious spirit of Christians from his parents, which has shaped his beautiful qualities – humility, punctuality, and love for those in need with the love of Christ.
At the same time, according to the Christian Daily, Wang Leehom and World Vision in Taiwan visited Laos to visit 10 of his sponsored children. As a Christian, Leehom Wang said that he believed that this trip was God’s best arrangement.
“700 yuan a month, change the lives of two people!”
“The future of children is with us!”
“Changing yourself and changing the world starts with sponsoring children!” and other profound and touching words are all from Wang Leehom’s own thoughts, and the stories he brought back have touched many readers on the Internet. Teachers and people who have gone online have left messages saying that these stories can give a lot of inspiration to the new generation of young people, and even hope to use them as classroom teaching materials to help students understand the plight of life in different regions. At present, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, more than 4,500 people have decided to join the subsidized children program because of Leehom Wang’s call, and more than 5,080 people have called to inquire about the funding program.
For the first time, I went to a remote and backward village, met the children I sponsored, talked with them, played games, and played the guitar. After leaving Laos, what has been hovering in Wang Leehom’s mind is the picture and touching of getting along with children; every child has a distressing story, especially 7-year-old Kapwa, who has no parents and works hard to take care of his own life, which is the most unforgettable for him. Wang Leehom smiled and said: “Actually, Kapwa’s courage in life is my hero and idol. Kakava’s parents went to Thailand to work and stayed with his brother at his uncle’s house. Along the way, Kapowa will always take the initiative to come and hold his hand; Kapowa often goes into the woods alone to find food and catch crickets, his independence and bravery, so that Wang Leehom, who has been in a privileged environment since childhood, feels admiration and respect, “I have seen many billionaires, but none of my personality traits make me feel so profound and so moved!”
7-year-old Ah Fei is the child who makes Wang Leehom pay the most attention. When he first saw Ah Fei, Wang Leehom felt a little frustrated, because how to tease this child is not to smile, but to look cool, more of inferiority complex and shyness. It turned out that his family was the poorest of the poor farmers in the area. In order to get closer to Ah Fei, Wang Leehom did his best, taking the children to play skipping rope, playing wave dance, and turning in circles, when Ah Fei took off his guard, showed a smile on his face, and was willing to let him hug him, Wang Leehom was very happy, and the smile on his face was brighter than Ah Fei.
The story of a staff member of the World Vision Council in Laos also deeply touched Leehom Wang, who loves music. The staff member, who was not left-handed, plucked the guitar with his left hand, had been poor when he was a child and had injured his right hand while doing housework, and had been unable to play the guitar again. He prayed to God and began to learn to pluck the strings with his left hand, but he didn’t expect to play beautiful music. The place where this staff member grew up was World Vision’s first funding program in Laos. Wang Leehom said, “I think I have seen here that many things are not impossible!” especially in the areas that were originally very poor, after the help of World Vision, they have made great changes.
Leehom Wang’s humility, dedication and love during the trip also touched the staff of World Vision who were also very moved. Wang Leehom not only invested his true feelings into every child he sponsored and their families, carefully sniped the materials prepared by the prospecting club in advance, and constantly asked the staff about the local work situation on the spot, more often acting as an English translator, without the slightest star frame, even if there was no photographic lens, he still silently unloaded the luggage for the media and staff of his peers.
About World Vision: World Vision is a Christian rescue, development and advocacy service that works with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice, inspired by the values of Christ, World Vision works with those most in need around the world, regardless of religion, race, color or gender.
After returning to Taiwan, he insisted on keeping a mood diary on his own, hoping to express what he saw in more detail. When he attended the Golden Horse Awards ceremony, he wore a dress, and the next day he made a TV announcement calling for sponsorship for children, while he insisted on changing into a World Vision T-shirt, facing two completely different scenes, he said, “I like to wear the World Vision T-shirt to promote the World Vision, because it makes me feel like a real volunteer!” 700 yuan a month, changing the lives of two people! Wang Leehom invited everyone to make a small change in life, which can make a big difference in the world. “As long as 700 yuan a month, joining the Sponsorship Program for Children will not only change the children of the world but also your future!”
Throughout the trip, Leehom Wang’s enthusiasm and love, humility and seriousness for children have been witnessed by many people, but Leehom Wang attributed all this glory to God, he said: “This trip is God’s best arrangement. President Du Minghan of Taiwan’s World Vision Association also testified: “In Wang Leehom, I saw a high-quality young man with very good personality traits, and I also felt the beautiful mark of Christianity on him!”
“In Leehom Wang, I saw a high-quality young man with a very good personality, and I also felt the beautiful mark of Christianity on him!”
Although Wang Leehom has lost his faith before, and even worshipped idols for the start of the movie, he believes that he will repent in front of God because of God’s love and mercy, and now he not only practices the love of the Lord, but also prays and relies on God in everything, “Wang Leehom Heroes Concert” counts down, tickets are sold out of the best number of sales since the opening of the Little Arena, and the record company specially chooses a good day and an auspicious day to arrange the protagonist Wang Leehom “Entering the Lord” Little Dome, presided over the countdown and blessing ceremony, because Wang Leehom is a Christian, he prayed for the success of the concert, he prayed for the success of the concert, in addition to practicing dance, he also practiced martial arts, running 6 to 7 kilometers a day, and then doing weight training with the black Chen Jianzhou (also a Christian), practicing until his whole body was sore, he said: ” My cure for the soreness was to continue practicing the next day, and I was fully committed to the concert, and I prayed to God every day for peace, so that I could concentrate and do my best in the concert. Witness to Christianity with practical deeds.
Bingxin, formerly known as Xie Wanying, is a famous Chinese poet, writer, translator, and children’s writer, whose pen name is taken from “A Piece of Ice Heart in the Jade Pot”, and is known as “the old man of the century” and “the grandmother of the literary world”.
Bingxin studied at the prestigious Wesleyan University in the United States [Soong Meiling also attended this university in the United States], and later taught at Yenching University, Tsinghua University, and the University of Tokyo in Japan, and was elected vice president of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
In a preface, she writes of Lao She: “Speaking of Lao She’s good deeds, sharing, and warmth, I remember once when we talked about the Bible, he said that ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’ [Acts 20:35]. I think Lao She is the most blessed person in doing good deeds. Lao, She is a Christian, I never knew that. But I received a Christian education from middle school to university”.
Bingxin is a Christian who has translated some Christian poetry. She once wrote the poem “Heavenly Baby”: “You may sleep in a manger, gazing at the sky.” This clear singing voice and precious words urged him to think. I want to have only tears in my eyes, blood in my heart, running to the cross, running to the crown of thorns, thinking about how to settle down in my life. The stars are in the sky, the night is deep, and the burden of sin begins to be borne. ”
Bingxin enthusiastically promotes the “philosophy of love”, and it can be said that the idea of Christ’s fraternity is the basic fulcrum of her literary creation, and her novels, poems, and essays, wherever her heart and pen, are always and everywhere about the word “love”: childlike innocence, maternal love, love for nature and love for the motherland.
On the afternoon of February 14, 1999, Bingxin’s daughter Wu Qingwei snuggled up to her mother and sang the song “Christmas Eve” to her mother in proficient English, blessing her mother affectionately. She said: “Usually when we celebrate the holidays at home, my mother always sings the song “Christmas Eve” with us. The old man listened quietly, listened, listened to the familiar singing, slowly opened his eyes, and smiled slightly. Perhaps, this song evokes memories of her past. Later, when the prime minister came to visit, Wu Qing interrupted his singing. Bingxin passed away on February 28 at the age of 99. (From the March 5, 1999 issue of Writer’s Digest Youth Guide)
Wu Qing is a professor at the University of Foreign Chinese in Beijing and vice chairman of the Women’s World Supreme Foundation. After Bingxin’s death, she went to Mabian County, Sichuan Province to teach rural female teachers. During the lecture, she shed tears three times and said, “My mother is a writer, my teacher, my role model. Mom won the Japan Children’s Literature Award with a prize of 30,000 yuan. She had always wanted to use the prize money to donate to school dropouts in poor mountainous areas, and today, I am here to fulfill her last wish. My mother donated all her manuscript fees, her books, calligraphy and paintings, and even her five organs and brains”
On March 1, 1999, Hong Kong’s “Sing Tao Daily” commented on Bing Xin: “Since 1920, she has been influenced by Tagore’s works. She is known as the ‘grandmother of the literary world’, she has left her broad love to countless weak people who need help the most, and she has left to China the spirit of advocating democracy, being indifferent to fame and fortune, and hating evil. ”
On March 3, 1999, the French newspaper Le Monde commented on Bing Xin: “She has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In contemporary Chinese literature, she has always been one of the great women who embody the spirit of freedom. ”
In his 1921 essay “Me + Christ=?”, Bingxin said: that Simon’s bravery, permeated in the love of Christ, and became Peter and became the pillar of the Christian church. What effect can I get if I am infiltrated with the love of Christ? Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12) and said, “While there is light, believe in the light and make you children of light” (John 12:36). The disciple John said, “That light is the true light that enlightens all who are born into the world” (John 1:9). The unique talents of the world, brought into play, are also like flowers. However, if his genius is not shrouded in the true light of Christ, and then reflected, the result is only silence, bleakness, no spirit, no business, no difference from the walking dead.
The light shines on the whole world, and it only depends on who is willing to follow Christ and who wants to be a “child of light.” Who wants to be shrouded in the love of Christ, and who wants to use the reflection of light to carry forward his special genius and contribute to the great effect of mankind? Engrave this equation in your mind, and always push the answer to this equation, which is: I + Christ =? (Excerpt from “Essays on the Heart of Ice”).
There is faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these three is love. —1 Corinthians 13:13
Ice Heart’s hymn
“Life” What is life?
Do you want to know him? He —- is an epiphany, It’s morning dew, It’s the shadow of the clouds;In an instant, it appeared, it blew away.
My God! You created the world, Why is he so illusory?
Yesterday —- passed. Today —- still? Tomorrow —- Who knows!
My God! The end of all things is near, Clear, I pray thee, Calling on you to pray for you, Until the day of the end of all things, amen.
Editor’s note: James 4:14 reads: You don’t even know if you’re alive tomorrow! Psalm 89:47 reads: Remember how short my life is, and remember that all you have made will perish.