(Minghui.org) February 22, 1997, is a day I will always remember. That was the day I was fortunate to begin practicing Falun Dafa. Since then, my life has been filled with joy. Through Falun Dafa, I found the purpose of life, and I began to return to my original, true self.
Prior to that, I suffered from trigeminal neuralgia-induced headaches, which is a genetic condition. When I was tired or upset or talked for a while, I got a headache. Whenever I felt the least bit ill, I got a headache. When I had a headache, my eyes, eye sockets, and temples hurt, and I didn’t dare to open my eyes. My ears always seemed to be blocked, and the pain made me feel muddle-headed. I also had hemorrhoids. Every time they got bad, I could barely stand let alone sit. However, soon after I began Falun Dafa cultivation, all these symptoms disappeared.
My mother-in-law has six children, and my husband is the second of the three sons. We worked in another city, while the other two sons worked in their hometown. When my in-laws got old, they wanted to stay with one of their sons. At that time, my in-laws had an eight-bedroom property in the countryside. They held a family meeting with the rest of their five children (we weren’t invited) and made a decision to live with their youngest son. After that, they sold their property and divided the proceeds of 20,000 yuan among their sons. They gave 1,300 yuan to each of the two older sons, and the remainder to the youngest son.
When we went to my husband’s hometown to celebrate the Chinese New Year in 1992, my father-in-law told us what they’d decided. Both my husband and I said, “Sure, whatever you decided is fine with us.” Then my father-in-law said, “I gave your older brother’s share to him, but I lent your share to your younger brother because he was short of money to buy a new house.” My younger brother then told us that he’d pay us back when he had the money. We said that was fine.
In 1994, my father-in-law passed away. My husband’s younger brother told my husband, “I don’t really have any money. I will not be able to pay you back what I owe you.” Right then, we needed extra funds to buy a house and had to borrow 3,000 yuan.
I was very upset! I hated my father-in-law for saying he was giving money to my husband but then lending it to my brother-in-law without asking. And then my brother-in-law didn’t keep his promise to return the money! From then on, I brought it up from time to time to my husband. It upset him every time.
After I began to cultivate Falun Dafa, I changed completely. I eliminated my selfishness and began to be considerate of my brother-in-law. When I let go of my attachment to self-interest, I wasn’t upset anymore. It was as if nothing had happened.
In 1996, my younger brother-in-law moved to another city, so he asked my older brother-in-law if he could take care of my mother-in-law. My older sister-in-law asked him for 10,000 yuan as compensation for doing so, but my younger sister-in-law wouldn’t agree to it. So things were tense between the two families.
When we visited our hometown, we invited my mother-in-law to live with us. We said we wouldn’t ask for any compensation and would support her all by ourselves. But my mother-in-law didn’t want to leave her hometown. Thus, in the end, we covered half of the money that my older sister-in-law asked for on behalf of my younger brother-in-law. Their conflict was resolved and they got along again. Those who witnessed this were very touched. They also saw that practitioners were selfless, tolerant, and honorable.
I was illegally arrested by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and imprisoned in 2008 for practicing Falun Dafa. Because I refused to give up my firm belief in Falun Dafa, I was tortured, mentally and physically, in prison. Later on, the guards deprived me of family visits.
Because my family couldn’t see me—or even know if I was still alive—my husband was under a great deal of stress and eventually had a stroke. Even though he was given emergency medical treatment that saved his life, he lost the ability to take care of himself. At that time my son was at university, so he had to take care of his father as well as study, which was exhausting. When my son was too busy to take care of his father, he asked our relatives and friends to help out. They all felt their endurance had reached the limit.
It wasn’t until I was released from prison and began to take care of my husband, that my son was finally relieved from the stress of taking care of his father. However, my husband had a relapse soon after and was admitted to the hospital for emergency treatment. After he had surgery for the second time, he lost consciousness and was in a vegetative state. Due to my attachments, the cruel reality almost did me in. I couldn’t get rid of my sentimentality for him. Gradually, by following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, I let go of the pain and made a breakthrough.
After my husband was discharged from the hospital and came home, I took care of him on my own. During the seven years I looked after him, I hardly took off my clothes at night when I went to bed. And I couldn’t sleep for more than three hours at a time, because I had to frequently turn him over.
My husband had a special diet. I had to add water and fruit to all of his food and puree them in a blender. He was bedridden, so his intestines didn’t move, and he was always constipated. I had to wear disposable gloves to pick out his dry stool. I also bathed him every day. Everyone who came to my home said, “Your home never looks like someone bedridden lives here.”
My husband was bedridden for more than seven years. Before he passed away, he never had one bedsore. People who are bedridden for many years inevitably get lung infections, but my husband never had one. Ordinary people called it miraculous, but I know that was the power of Dafa.
My in-laws were very touched by how selflessly I took care of my bedridden husband. When my sister-in-law came to see him, she only stayed with us for a few days. She said, “You have to do so many things every day. If it were me, I couldn’t keep up for more than three days.” She also said that her brother-in-law had a relative in the same condition as my husband. Both the relative’s husband and daughter dedicated themselves to taking care of her. After just a bit over a year, they felt they couldn’t keep up anymore and that they were on the edge of a mental breakdown. My sister-in-law said to them, “Look at my sister-in-law. She takes care of my brother all by herself day and night. But she is always in a good mood and in good health.”
What a practitioner manifests is truth! At the same time, the resilience, selflessness, and goodness that manifest in the midst of tribulations have been fully validated by the facts. Thus, the CCP’s lies were also exposed.
After I was released from prison, I began to make truth-clarification DVDs and calendars, which no one in our area did before. One year-end when I was making calendars, two practitioners borrowed a large paper-cutting knife and hole punch from another production site. These tools were in high demand at that time, so we had to return them the next day. The three of us quickly started working on the calendars.
Since there were only three of us to do all that work, from cutting the paper, punching holes, and compiling the materials to make the final product, we ended up working from the afternoon until late at night, seven and half hours in all. My husband slept through all of it. I just had to change his diaper for him once. Then he quickly went back to sleep, and I could continue with my work. Once we finished, he woke up. This had never happened before. All of us experienced the power of Dafa.
Above are a few of my cultivation experiences. I truly know that I have a big gap as I compare my cultivation to Master’s requirements, and I lag behind compared to dedicated practitioners. However, I will listen to Master. In the limited time left, I will strive forward and do the three things well, so as to not let down Master.