(Minghui.org) My name in Lian Lian, and I am a Falun Dafa practitioner who lives in the country. I never attended school. I’ve practiced cultivation for over two decades, but never did anything remarkable. I just stayed home and looked after my family.
I used to have ailments from head to toe. My family was poor and did not have money to take me to a doctor, so none of my illnesses were diagnosed. I endured my poor health and thought there was no escape from my hardship. My father-in-law was partially paralyzed, while my husband pulled a long face all day and earned a bit of money through keeping sheep so that my children, two sons and a daughter could go to school.
I began to practice Falun Dafa hoping to cure my illnesses. Soon afterwards, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute the practice. I was constantly harassed simply because I refused to give up my belief.
Disaster Strikes
The next year, in 2000, my husband eloped with a married woman in our village who had four children. My family was humiliated.
From then on, my broken family suffered endlessly. I went through the most hardship, overwhelmed by harassment from CCP officials and family pressures. My children felt inferior and did not want to leave the house or go to school. They hated their father. The most difficult thing was having to take care of my paralyzed father-in-law who was in his 70s. Even though his son abandoned our family, my father-in-law continued to stay with me. He has two sons and a daughter but the other three children only came to see him occasionally. No one offered to take care of the old man. However, I never took it to heart. The house needed repairs but I had no money. Furthermore, when my husband left, he borrowed money from relatives and took out a bank loan amounting to tens of thousand yuan.
After my husband ran away, the debtors were afraid I would also flee and they would not be able to recover the money. They blocked the door and demanded that I pay them back. I promised to repay what my husband owed. I could not repay the loan when it was due and I was nearly taken away. Someone came forward to act as a guarantor and the matter was temporarily resolved.
I used to be hot tempered, loved to argue and was unreasonable. If all of this had happened in the past, I would have walked away from all these difficulties and not cared about the family or my husband’s debt. But because I am a Falun Dafa practitioner, I knew I should act according to Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. I should treat others with kindness and be tolerant. Others can treat me badly but I cannot do the same thing to them. The teachings of Dafa made me determined to do the right thing—stay put, take care of the young as well as old in the family, and repay my husband’s debt.
Year after year, there was no news of my husband. Singlehandedly, I looked after my father-in-law and supported my children’s education. I grew food on several acres of land, saved money to pay off my husband’s debt, repaired the house and helped my sons get married. To this end, I worked day and night. As my house was old and on lower ground, water accumulated in the yard and drained into the house. I singlehandedly brought sand home and made a padding over one meter deep. People in the village said: Is Lian crazy? How can she be so capable? Is she made of metal?
I am not Ironman but I encountered something only an iron man would be able to handle. One time, I was bitten by a neighbor’s dog. It bit off a section of my finger and ate it, including the nail. My neighbor was terrified and wanted to take me to the hospital. I said, “I practice Dafa, I will be fine.” I went home and was not bothered by what happened. I did my chores as normal. Not long after, my finger, including the bone, flesh and nail grew back. There was no scar at all.
Not only that, because I continued to practice Dafa in spite of hardship and suffering and working tirelessly for others, all my illnesses were cured. I have endless energy. I know that Master Li (the founder of Falun Dafa) helped me because I acted according to the teachings, so he created miracles for me. It is wonderful to be a good person.
The persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners was escalating then and I was not spared. One time, Party officials came to my house. My children were afraid I would be taken away if I said I was still practicing and told the officials: “Our mother does not practice anymore.” I thought it was not right to tell them I’d stopped practicing, as Falun Dafa is great. I dropped my chores and went to the police station. When I told the officer I still practiced, he shouted in anger: “Fine, continue with your practice! Go to the wall and stand there! Wait for someone to take you away!” I stood the whole afternoon. As it got dark, the officer said, “Why don’t you go home to take care of your paralyzed father-in-law?”
I later learned that the police station wanted to arrest me and send me to a labor camp. However the villager officer got upset and said, “You cannot touch this woman, if she is gone, who will take care of her family?”
My Family Is Blessed by Following Falun Dafa’s Teachings
This family stayed whole not because of me, but because of Dafa.
All those years, I used less fertilizer than others while growing food but I harvested more. After my father-in-law passed away, I had time to work at a factory in my village. In a few years time, I repaid all my husband’s debt.
Not only that, good things came to my family, one after another. In the village, it is common to spend several hundred thousand yuan on a son’s marriage but I spent 10,000 yuan in total on my two sons’ marriages. My sons subsequently became business owners. In 5, 6 years time, my family transitioned from a poor household looked down upon by others to one envied and praised by the neighbors. Someone said enviously, “Your family is so blessed!” As to my husband’s embarrassing act, people seemed to have forgotten about it.
My husband returned home.
My sons wanted to disown their father who caused us so much embarrassment and hardship. I told them: “We should be kind and forgive others. Don’t be rude to your father.” They listened to me and took him in.
I did not say a word of complaint to my husband nor did I fight with him or his mistress. First of all, I told him if not for Falun Dafa, the family would have broken up. The whole family gained as a result of my practice.
He was moved when he learned that I had taken good care of his father until his death, the children had started their own families and were well established, and that I repaid all the money he owed. He changed his ways and was sorry for what he did to the family. He rushed to do chores and stayed at home. Now he carries an amulet with information about Falun Dafa and knows that Master is here to save people.
My husband has a skill: he knows how to cook the hometown’s traditional banquet. This year, during Chinese New Year, he and my two sons prepared a banquet for the family and relatives, 12 people in total. Everyone enjoyed the food.
Looking at this happy scene, I recalled what happened more than 10 years ago. If I too had left after my husband eloped with his lover, if I did not take care of my father-in-law, would my family be so harmonious today? My children would have lost the chance to be educated. They might have even learned bad habits and would not be able to have steady jobs! If I had fought with my husband’s brothers and sisters on the matter of taking care of my father-in-law, who knows, maybe I who was initially in bad health, would be so angry I might have done things that damaged family ties and hurt the village people. If I did not do the right thing, when I faced arrest and detention, would the village officer speak out for me? If my children and I hated my husband when he returned home and threw him out, would I see such a happy family today?
Yet, none of these scenarios happened. It was Dafa that guided me, taught me to speak the truth, do the correct thing, treat others with kindness and be forgiving. I did as told and benefited. Everyone else gained as well. Indeed, good will be rewarded with good!
Dafa has shone a bright light on my family. Falun Dafa is great! Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good!
On the occasion of the 23rd World Falun Dafa Day and the 30th anniversary of the public introduction of Dafa, on behalf of my whole family, I send greetings to Master:
“Master you have worked hard! Thank you!”
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