By Heping
How come I suddenly have a bad cold again?
One day in March of 2018, my husband wanted me to go back to our hometown to weed the fields with him. However, I had had a cold and had been taking medicines for a few days; for fear that I would get even worse due to exposure to the wind, I wanted to return to our hometown after finishing my medications and feeling much better. I then said that to him, and he agreed.
A few days later, after being out of medicine, I got well. So my husband and I decided to go back to our hometown the next day. However, the next morning after I got out of bed, I suddenly felt light-headed and cold all over, and got a sore throat. I became ill again. So I went to see a doctor and was prescribed some medicine. After taking the medicine, I still wasn’t getting any better.
After lunch, my husband said to me, “Let’s go back to our hometown.” I said, “Sorry, I can’t. I have a bad cold again. If I go with you all the way to our hometown against the wind, my condition will become more serious.” Hearing that, he, impatient to weed the fields, left for our hometown alone in anger.
I wondered: I got well yesterday. How come I suddenly have a bad cold again today? Even though I took medicines this morning, they have had no effect on me. Why is this? At that moment, an idea popped into my head: All things we encounter contain God’s good intentions. Since I don’t understand it, I should obey first.
God’s love is often hidden within situations.
The afternoon of the same day, I went to get our grandson from school. Hardly had we arrived home when my husband entered our front door with his face so pale. With a start, I thought, “Is something wrong? How could he return home so early and look so pale?” Sure enough, he said that, on his way to our hometown, he got into an accident which took place round a hairpin bend. He then told me all about the accident. At that time, he was hooked by a truck and dragged over 10 meters before the truck was stopped. It was very strange to him: He was riding a motorbike shortly before the accident. However, he didn’t know for sure when he was hooked or how he was dragged by the vehicle. He didn’t realize the traffic accident until the driver pulled up and raised him to his feet. He saw the motorbike had gotten broken in the near distance, and that the contents of the trunk of his motorbike were scattered on the ground, while he found he miraculously wasn’t hurt at all. Hearing this, I deeply knew it was God who had protected him. Otherwise, he would have been seriously hurt or died in the accident. So my husband and I kept thanking God for protecting him.
That night, when I lay on the bed, the things that had happened those days came into my mind: A few days ago my husband suggested we go back to our hometown to weed the fields. I was going to do so after I got well. I did get well yesterday and we planned to go back to our hometown today. However, I had a bad cold again all of a sudden in the morning and didn’t feel any better after taking medicine, and I therefore couldn’t go with him. Now it appears that this really is a good thing. If this had not happened, I would have gone with my husband this afternoon, and when the accident occurred, I would have been sitting on the back of my husband’s motorbike. So what would have happened to me? Thinking of these, I gasped in horror. The year before last, a friend of mine also had a traffic accident round that hairpin bend, which is an accident black spot, and died on the spot. Before the accident happened, she was just sitting on the back of a motorbike.
Thinking back over these things, I deeply felt God’s great love and saw God is truly wise and almighty. Just then I couldn’t help but think of God’s words: “Sometimes things that look bad on the outside are not necessarily bad, and are actually good things. For example, you want to go out one day but you eat something that gives you a bad stomach, so you don’t go out, and as it happens a plague descends outside. Is this bad stomach a good thing or a bad thing? (A good thing.) How many days does it take an ordinary person with only a touch of a bad stomach, from eating spoiled food, to get over it? (Two or three days.) You must have three days of diarrhea, you cannot sleep well at night, your stomach hurts all the time, you alternate between needing the toilet and vomiting, and no matter what you take, don’t you still need to go through a process of recovery? In severe cases, how long will it take? (A week.) One week, and those with a weak constitution may take a fortnight and recover slowly, right? You can’t eat very much and what you do eat isn’t absorbed very well, so it could take ten days or a fortnight. You are kept at home for ten days or a fortnight, and you are perhaps unaware of any big events happening outside your door. When you are better, you go outside and look, and you say, ‘Ah! How have so many people died? What has happened?’ What has happened? God has acted and He has used this method to protect you. Is this method something that people expect normally? (No, it isn’t.) People don’t expect it.” God’s words deeply convinced me. Right. God’s beauty and goodness are hidden within the things we encounter. From the outside, getting sick is a bad thing. However, sometimes just through illness God protects us miraculously. Perhaps we don’t understand the way He protects us when things happen to us, but actually all things we encounter contain God’s love and salvation for us mankind.
In fact, everyone lives in God’s care and protection.
Unconsciously, perhaps we’ve experienced many “little things” like this experience of mine, but many times we don’t truly have faith in God’s sovereignty, or appreciate His love toward us in these things, much less get to know Him from them. As a result, we neglect God’s grace and love for us.
Afterward, I saw the following words of God: “God’s treatment of each and every person is earnest and responsible, more responsible even than you are to yourself. Is this not so? God does not speak idly, neither does He stand on high putting on airs nor does He make do with fooling people. Instead He is honestly and silently doing the things He Himself needs to do. These things bring blessings, peace and joy to man, they bring man peacefully and happily before the sight of God…. God is faithful and everything He does is both true and real. He is the only thing that people can count on and the only thing that people can entrust their lives and their all to.” From these words I saw God’s protection for us mankind is real and true. And I had truly appreciated this. Take my experience, for example. God spared me the accident through illness, from which I have seen God’s love is hidden within situations. Although sometimes we don’t understand God’s good intentions and misunderstand Him within the environment He creates for us, God never justifies Himself to us, and just silently does His work watching over and protecting us at all times. God’s essence is so beautiful and kind!
The Book of Proverbs from the Bible says, “The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10). From now on, I’m willing to entrust my everything to God and focus on experiencing more of His words in my daily life so as to attain an understanding of God and revere Him.
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