(Minghui.org) All our relatives and friends were surprised that my niece, after only three months of tutoring in high school courses, passed the entrance exam and was admitted to a prestigious art university in China. Previously, she had suffered from severe depression and was practically autistic. When people said it was because of my excellent guidance, I replied, “It was Master Li who created this miracle!”
My niece became depressed at age 12. Despite seeing a psychologist, her depression only worsened, and she eventually dropped out of school. Her father found her a better psychologist, who met with her for an hour each week and charged 1,000 yuan ($148.00 per session. The annual cost was 40,000 ($592.00) to 50,000 yuan, and although the treatment lasted two years, it was still ineffective.
She became almost completely withdrawn, refusing to speak to her family and rarely smiling. Her mother, who stayed home to care for her during those two years, also became depressed. The stress on the family led to her father being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, while her grandmother suffered from an unspecified mental illness.
When she was 14, I took her in. At first, she kept to herself, but she gradually started talking to me and showed me the many blue-grey pictures she had saved on her phone. I was stunned. I never imagined a girl in her early teens would have so many drab pictures. I could sense the despair and hopelessness in her heart.
I also inadvertently came across some pictures she didn’t want me to see: several stills from a Chinese period drama featuring gay men, some pictures of bizarre outfits, and some morose videos and songs. Almost nothing on her phone seemed normal. Her thoughts were almost entirely distorted and corrupt, which caught me off guard. Her mother was afraid to interfere, fearing the girl would commit suicide; her father felt the same. Severe depression often accompanies a high risk of suicide, and she appeared to be very vulnerable.
When I prepared meals, I asked what she wanted to eat, and she always said anything was fine. She later proclaimed, “Nothing tastes good to me; everything is the same!” I was shocked to learn that she had lost her sense of taste.
I invited her to watch a program on Chinese history produced by NTDTV. She enjoyed it. I said, “This was produced by our practitioners. It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”
She didn’t say anything, but she noted the program’s broadcast time, watched it repeatedly, and even took a lot of notes.
Years ago, before she started elementary school, I encouraged her to memorize some poems from Hong Yin with me. I showed her the book again and suggested that she copy some of the illustrations. She drew a lotus flower that looked quite realistic and was pleased with her drawing.
Given her state at the time, I didn’t expect her to be able to study the Fa with me, so I decided to introduce it to her later. After she had been living with me for three months, I invited her to join me as I was watching video recordings of Master’s lectures. The next day, I saw her watching them by herself. Soon afterward, we started studying the Fa and doing the Dafa exercises together.
Soon after she began practicing Falun Dafa, she came across a cleaning lady crying. She then went to the nearby supermarket and bought some snacks for her, saying, “Auntie, please have some; sweet things can cheer you up!”
The lady was momentarily stunned and deeply touched. No one expected a child who’d been depressed for so long to show such kindness.
The first Dafa exercise my niece did with me was the hour-long sitting meditation. She persevered through the pain of sitting cross-legged and completed the entire session. In the morning, while she was doing the standing exercises, I could hear her bones crack; we were puzzled for a moment, but didn’t think much of it. I then noticed she was holding her head up and was no longer hunched over.
The two years of depression brought not only mental anguish but also significant physical changes from the medication. There was a bulge at the back of her neck, which kept her from lifting her head up. However, the bulge had now disappeared. I exclaimed with delight, “The lump on your neck has gone down. See, Master has relieved the pressure on your spine!”
She later stood in front of the mirror, then smiled and said, “It’s nice to look so normal!”
I laughed and asked, “Didn’t you look like this before?” She replied no.
“What did you look like then?”
“I don’t know, but definitely not normal.”
She said she used to have prominent cheekbones that looked unsightly, which is why she didn’t like looking in the mirror. I hadn’t noticed that, but when she first met me, she had a round, moon-shaped face, which was a side effect caused by medication. My niece said the protruding cheekbones were less pronounced now.
Indeed, she looked much better, and her overall body shape had returned to normal. These transformations occurred after she had practiced Falun Dafa for only a few months.
Soon afterward, my niece began to study art. She had studied painting as a child, so she continued in those courses. At the time, I didn’t have any other expectations. I just thought she couldn’t stay at home forever. If she had gone back to a regular school, she’d have been behind by two years and wouldn’t have been able to catch up. So I let her study what she liked first, then we’d go from there.
After returning to class, my niece took a picture of her first painting and sent it to her parents. Their reactions were the same: “Why are you sending us a picture?” It looked so realistic that they thought it was a photograph rather than an actual painting. My niece was overjoyed.
Her mother was also very excited to see the changes in her daughter and went around telling everyone, “My daughter can smile now!”
She didn’t know the changes were due to practicing Dafa. Because I was persecuted for my faith, my family and relatives were afraid that my niece would follow me and practice as well. So I didn’t tell them what had caused her to be healed.
After my niece started practicing, she came to understand the true meaning of life. She found hope and climbed out of despair. The changes in her body made her more attractive and renewed her confidence. Her sense of taste also returned. She used to have difficulty breathing through her nose and would unconsciously sleep with her mouth open, but all that stopped. The stomachaches she used to have also vanished. When she first moved in, her complexion was sallow; now it was fair and rosy; she looked radiant!
Because my niece didn’t complete junior high school, she could only go to a vocational high school before taking the college entrance exam. In the year before graduating from vocational high school, she attended an art training class. After the training ended, she had only three months to study academic subjects in preparation for the college entrance exam. Her parents didn’t expect her to go to a university and did nothing to help her with her academic studies after she started high school.
When my niece went for the exam, she thought, “This is like taking a mock college entrance exam.” As a result, she was less nervous on the day of the exam than the day before. After the exam, she was quite optimistic, saying, “I think it went okay.” When the results came out, we were all surprised—she had actually surpassed the minimum score required for undergraduate admission.
Her mother said, “Putting everything else aside, just look at her English score. She hasn’t studied it for so long, and in just three months, how could she get such a high score? There were so many new words she needed to learn.” In three months, she probably took the equivalent of 20 English classes. Her teacher said, “We can’t teach her any more; otherwise, it would be too much to absorb.”
My niece didn’t study like crazy; she just did her best. I even canceled some of her classes to lessen her burden. During that time, I studied the Fa with her because I discovered that, during the intensive training period for academic courses, she had become attached to her cellphone. When I reviewed her browsing history, I became alarmed.
I told her, “If your morality declines, even if you get into a good school, you’ll end up being a troublemaker. Why not join me to study the Fa and learn to be a good person.”
After we had studied the Fa for a few days, she underwent a profound transformation. She recognized her wrongdoings and became optimistic and kind again. She was considerate of every teacher and able to concentrate on her studies.
My original idea that she should spend all her time studying academic subjects was wrong. Even though I spent a little time reading the Fa with her, it didn’t affect her studies. But after I witnessed how her morality was elevated through Fa-study, her learning efficiency also improved. Meanwhile, in subtle and intangible ways, Master miraculously provided her with the wisdom she needed to learn.
While filling out college applications, a miracle occurred. Her teacher suggested choosing a less desirable university because we weren’t confident she would meet the standards of a more competitive one. According to the rules, we could specify only one school. So we initially chose the one she didn’t really want to attend.
However, when it was time to confirm her college application, we argued over her major and overlooked the confirmation step. The next morning, as we were about to confirm, a message popped up on the computer saying the university she liked hadn’t filled its quota, which meant that, as long as she passed its admission test, she would likely be accepted. My niece excitedly asked what she should do. I smiled and said, “Master gave this to you, so just take it.” She then updated her application and was admitted to her preferred school.
Her father has always looked down on Falun Dafa practitioners, thinking we were foolish. But when my niece was miraculously admitted to a prestigious university, he began to admire me. He also came to see Dafa as truly extraordinary and believed what practitioners had previously told him. He secretly asked my niece, “Did your brother join the Chinese Communist Party at the university? If so, let your aunt help him quit.”
I told my family that my niece studied the Fa with me and said, “It was Master Li who created this miracle!”
My family attended my aunt’s granddaughter’s wedding last year. My niece was on school break and came with us. When she saw my aunt, she not only greeted her but also helped her walk. My aunt said to my mother, “This child is a completely different person now!”
Naturally, with my niece’s recovery from depression and the changes that no medical treatment could achieve, her family was overjoyed.