(Minghui.org) When I was very young, I had a disease that essentially caused my skin to rot. It healed after some time, but later I developed a thyroid disease, which caused my neck to swell.
My father, at the same time, had hepatitis B and had a long stay in the hospital. He was so thin, the doctor had given up on him. I caught the disease, too, when I was eight years old.
In an attempt to cure my hepatitis B, my mother forced me to drink a very bitter medicine every day. With my father on the brink of death and me battling the same disease, my mother was very depressed. I hadn’t seen her smile for a long time.
My grandma fortunately learned to practice Falun Gong around that time. She taught it to my father and he soon regained his health. My mother also took me off the medicine I had been taking and had me practice Falun Gong with my father. All my illnesses vanished as well.
My mother was smiling again, and my 21 years of cultivation in Falun Gong began.
My grades improved dramatically after I started practicing Falun Gong. Though I had been considered a slow learner in elementary school, I ranked among the top students in middle school, high school, and college. My mother was proud of my improvement.
My father told me that it was Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, who had granted me the wisdom to become such a good student, but that I should always stay modest.
I knew my father was right, so I applied Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to cultivate myself and treat others with kindness. If any conflicts or tribulations arose at school, I would look inside for the cause. If I was wronged or taken advantage of, I would just smile and let it go.
My father brought me with him to the park every weekend to participate in the group exercises and Fa study. Sometimes we taught new practitioners the exercises. A good middle school had accepted me based of my test scores. It was a happy time, and I knew that Falun Gong was guiding me to become like a little angel.
I was having a wonderful summer vacation practicing Falun Gong with my father until July 25, 1999. My father came home unexpectedly, followed by many policemen who forced their way into our home and ransacked it, searching for Falun Gong books. The police confiscated all our Falun Gong books. My happiness was ground to a sudden halt.
Though my father had a fearless expression on his face, I could see he felt pained at the loss of the books. He told me that the government had smeared Falun Gong, and that he planned to go to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice it. I wanted to go with him, but my parents said I was too little.
After my father left for Beijing, he was arrested on the train. The police tried to force him to give up his belief in Falun Gong, but he refused. He was then fired from his work unit and sent to a forced labor camp for three years.
Policemen repeatedly ransacked our home during that time and questioned my mother and me. Our relatives and friends also believed the lies about Falun Gong and stayed completely away from us.
Then my mother was also fired by her work unit. She found a new job, but it was a man’s job where she had to carry heavy loads. She was only paid 600 yuan per month. She asked me not to worry and just to study hard.
Eventually I was accepted by a major high school and enrolled in the advanced class. I kept studying the Fa and did the exercises with my grandma, so I did not pick up any bad influences in school. I always wore a uniform to school because of my family’s financial situation, but I did not care what others thought about my appearance.
One day one of my classmates humiliated me in front of many students by saying that I was ugly and so was my uniform. I agreed with him and gave him a smile. He was surprised and stood quiet for a while before he walked away.
I had just started attending high school when my father was released. He didn’t talk to me about his time in the forced labor camp, but I could see that he had lost his teeth there. He told me to cultivate diligently and that I should tell my classmates the facts about Falun Gong.
I overheard him when he told my family about the persecution he suffered while incarcerated. He recounted how the guards had tortured him and locked him in a small cell. The cell was freezing in the winter, and he was forced to run in circles in the tiny space. I cried listening to him recount his story.
Within a few months, my father was arrested again and given three more years of forced labor for refusing to give up Falun Gong. All together, my father was arrested eight separate times. He was also incarcerated at the time I took my college entrance exam.
During my last term in high school I was emotionally attached to my test scores. The attachments of competitiveness and jealousy arose in my mind, and I studied the Fa less and less. My school studies were more and more tiring, yet I could not sleep well at night.
I was stuck in a painful situation that I could not seem to get myself out of, when all of a sudden a strong desire to study Falun Gong again arose in my heart. I began to diligently study the Fa every day; I would then do my homework and study for my college entrance exam after that. With studying the Fa as my number one priority, I relaxed without being attached to the results of my exam. I then passed the exam and was admitted to a key university.
Despite the persecution that my father was subjected to, my mother started to practice Falun Gong in 2007. She was persecuted to death in 2014 when she refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong and Master Li Hongzhi.
After my mother’s death, I was very depressed for more than a year. My father and I supported each other and continued with our cultivation, studying the Fa and doing the exercises. Then my father was arrested again and sent to another forced labor camp. He is still incarcerated as I write this.
It was difficult facing the empty house when I got home from school. I was overcome by a deep depression and often sat on the floor crying. I realized that I had two options to choose from: be depressed or cultivate myself and practice Falun Gong. Of course, I chose the latter.
Sometimes I am shown beautiful scenes in other dimensions. I have also had some very close calls to my safety.
Once as I pushed my bicycle across an intersection during a lunch break, a car ran a red light and hit me. I was knocked off my bicycle and thrown into the air. I landed on the ground pretty far from my bike. My first thought was how much money it might cost if the bicycle was damaged. I did not think about my body at all.
Upon checking the bike, I found that the wheels were the only thing even slightly damaged. I was relieved and ready to go home.
It was then that I looked around and found that I was surrounded by traffic police and people who had witnessed the accident. They said that I should call my family and ask the driver to pay me some money. They thought I should go to the hospital and get checked out.
I knew Teacher had protected me and that I would be fine. I told the bystanders that there wasn’t any problems and that I was fine. There were only a few scratches on my face, arms, and knees—that was it.
But some of the people who had witnessed the accident said, “You were knocked so far into the air. How can you be fine?”
The driver of the car offered to take me to the hospital to get checked out. I just smiled and told them that I was fine and that I was ready to leave. The traffic police forced me to write down the driver’s name and license number; then they let me leave.
I ate lunch at home and rode the bicycle back to school in the afternoon.
I will remain steadfast in my belief in Falun Gong.