The Smile Under the Iron

by Cai Yue

If you have heard of the story of Liu Xiao-xiang, even a little bit of it, you must already believe she easily qualifies as one of those personas with extreme bitterness and melancholy. When she actually sat next to me, however, she was but a crisp smile. It was a smile that covered all past sufferings and sufferings to come.

Broken marriage

"I became a believer in Mainland China in 1976. Since my parents were jailed in the Cultural Revolution, I had begun to think whether there was truth in this world."

I knew about her father, a well-known figure. It was not hard to imagine how they suffered during the Cultural Revolution.

"In the underground church, brothers and sisters guided me one on one. It was a pity, though, that most of them went abroad in early 1980s. And from then on my spiritual life stopped growing."

"When did you come to America?"

"In 1990. My husband came three years earlier than I did. Soon after I came here, I found out he had another woman.

"We began our endless quarrels. Hate and anger began to grow between us. My husband didn't believe in God. God was never in his heart, nor did he have any sense of repentance. He even tried to make me suffer by constantly abusing our son in my absence."

"His own flesh?" I asked.

"Yes." For the first time I saw a bitter smile on her face. "He was only eight years old. My husband knew my son was my heart and soul. Whenever I was not home, he would spank him to the extent that my son would tremble and sweat whenever he heard his father call his name...;

"So I ran away from home with my son. And it was at that time I came back to God because I had no other way out."

She indeed had no other way out. A single mother, no income, no degree, no work experience, began to wander with her child in Los Angeles, one of the richest cities in the world with countless million-dollar homes.

"We had a hard time settling down at first. But we finally rented a single room with no living room and no private kitchen. I slept in bed and my son slept on the floor. We lived there for two years. For a lengthy period of time we didn't have enough to eat. We often ate two meals a day, a pretty good one in the morning and a bad one in the evening. My son often said to me: 'Mom, I'm hungry.' ...;"

Her eyes were wet. She continued: "Imagine how a mother would feel when her son said to her he was hungry but she couldn't find anything for him to eat."

I remained silent. I knew any mother would feel a great pain in the heart.

I asked: "Did the church know your problems?"

"Not really because I always told brothers and sisters I wasn't short of money. Later the pastor told me: 'You should learn to receive.'

"I was unwilling to receive because of my pride. For many years I had been a great helper and I had had a lot of compassion to others. The last I wanted happening was to see myself becoming the target for pity and compassion. The Lord, however, used my sufferings to knock away my pride so that I learned to receive help with thanksgiving. The Lord also made me examine my motivation while helping others in the past. I learned how to give without hurting others."

Rebellious son

"My son ran away from home for the first time when he was 14. The abuses from his father painfully remained in his heart. There was too much hatred in him. He joined the gangs.

"He simply disappeared for two whole weeks. I knelt down in front of God and cried bitterly: 'Oh Lord, I've already lost everything in the world, everything but this son. Now that you allowed him to run away, what would I live in this world for?'

"Then suddenly, I heard a voice saying: 'You made a vow to me in your pregnancy that you would give your first-born to me. Don't you remember?'

"I was dumbfounded. The scene over ten years ago slowly came back to my mind. It was the time I just got pregnant and I had no idea whether it was going to be a boy or girl. So I vowed to God: 'Oh Lord, if this is a son, I will give him to you as your servant.' Then I completely forgot about it. But God never forgets. He once again reminded me that I shouldn't really worry about my son at all now that the boy belonged to the Lord.

"So at once peace came back to me because I knew my son was in the hands of the Lord.

"That weekend I was giving my testimony in church when a sister rushed in from outside and shouted: 'Xiao-xiang, your son came back. He is now with the pastor.'

"I was extremely excited. How could I possibly have known that my son didn't want to go home because he feared my punishment. Instead he stayed with the pastor for seven and a half months, repenting and confessing sins...;"

Hearing this, my eyes brightened and I asked with hope: "So he has completely changed since then?"

Xiao-xiang shook her head: "No, there were ups and downs. He struggled a lot in his heart. He was even made to appear in court a few times. Once I really wanted to punish him for good. But then a light seemed to flash by my heart. All the sins I had committed in the past years went through my mind like movie scenes. It dawned on me that God was reminding me again: You are such a sinner, but I love you anyway as you are. Why can't you accept your son as he is?

"From that day on, I had completely changed my attitude toward my son. I had had a temper and I had rebuked him a lot. But now I told him that I loved him, that I didn't like his shortcomings but I still loved him as a person, and that the door to this family would remain open to him forever.

"Thanks to the Lord, who, through my son who almost broke my heart, taught me what it was to love unconditionally, to accept wholeheartedly and to tolerate fall."

Ex-husband's heart attack

I asked Xiao-xiang: "So I suppose you forgive your husband too?"

Xiao-xiang shook her head: "For a while I thought I had forgiven him. Then one day, a good friend of us called me and said: 'Do you know your ex-husband got a heart attack and he has been hospitalized for over a month now...;'

"My first reaction was: 'Just a heart attack? Why didn't he die?'

"But I immediately repented: 'Oh Lord, please forgive my evil thought.'

"That evening, I tossed and turned in bed and couldn't go to sleep. Memories of the past continually came back to my mind, and every single bit of the past caused me pain and my heart was once again filled with malicious thoughts. I knew I should not hate anybody because it was written in the Bible that to hate was to kill. But I really couldn't help it. I couldn't control myself.

"I went to the pastor and told him about it. The pastor thought for a while and then he told me a story:

"A man caught the enemy he hated the most and shut him up in a house. He locked up all the entrances to the house. Then every day he did nothing but holding the keys and patrolling outside the house. He didn't realize, however, that while he took freedom away from his enemy, he also lost his own freedom.

"In the end the pastor said: 'Oh Xiao-xiang, if you refuse to release your ex-husband from the jail of your heart, you will also lose your own freedom.'

"'Oh, Pastor,' I said, 'What should I do?'"

Then Xiao-xiang turned to me with a big smile. She said:

"I bet you'll never guess what the pastor had to say. He said: 'You should pray for his new family. Pray that God would bless them.'

"My ex-husband remarried. His current wife is not the same woman he went to when I first came. I don't know how many women he had had since we broke up.

"I screamed: 'Come on! Are you serious? He committed such a sin against me and my son and he never cared about our life or death. We struggle on the poverty line because of him. How can you want me to pray that God bless such a wicked family of his?"

I interrupted: "What did the pastor say?"

Xiao-xiang laughed: "The pastor said: 'If God believes your ex-husband is not worthy of His blessings, then blessings will come to you.'

"I said to myself: Is that so? Maybe I should give it a try.

"So I went home. I knelt down and prayed, but not without reminding God first: 'Don't forget to give me twice the blessings.'

"Several hours had slipped by. Then without my knowing it, I experienced relaxation. It was a complete relaxation, body and heart. I felt I was completely surrounded by the Lord's love. I can't really describe such a feeling to you. You won't be able to understand unless you experience such a feeling yourself...; I don't know if God has listened to my prayers and blessed my ex-husband, but I truly know that God has blessed me.

"Then I cried loudly: 'Oh Lord, I have believed in you for over twenty years. But why didn't you let me experience you up till now?'

"Then I heard the kind voice of God: 'Child, why didn't you learn to forgive up till now?'"

Wandering kids

I asked her: "Xiao-xiang, how is your life now?"

"Very good," she replied. "I am on the quality assurance staff in a computer company in Irvine, Southern California. I serve the Lord in church. For several years I have participated in a special activity, and that is to take care of poor and homeless children.

"And there is a reason for that. My son is never a favorite among others. Everybody seems to like kids who can play the piano or can sing, or kids with neat clothing. So he often makes acquaintances with poor kids nobody else seems to care, kids from Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos, or homeless kids.

"Every weekend, my son will bring home seven or eight young guys who will spend the nights with us, from Friday evening till Monday morning. At meal time, these people will quietly sit around the dining table, waiting to be served. At first I said to my son: 'Please do not bring these people home any more. I am really tired of it. We don't have enough financial strength to entertain them anyway.'

"But my son replied: "Mom. You know they are pitiable. They are very, very poor. Their refrigerator has nothing in it except a bottle of hot pepper sauce. If you don't care for them, they will starve.'

"So we have been doing this ever since.

"These young people come and go. Once in a while some of them leave and new ones come. Some of them are run-away kids and they often live with my son in our living room for two months or more (We live in a one bedroom apartment. My son sleeps in the living room). In the beginning, some of our friends supported us by bringing food to us. Later on they are no longer as supportive: 'You can't do this forever,' they said, 'You could even run into legal issues.'

"But I'm willing to keep on doing it because Jesus said: 'Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Mt. 25:40)

"Service to the Lord will not go without reward. These kids seldom brought smiles or greetings with them when they first came. They often sat at the dining table indifferently, waiting to be served. When they had finished eating or when I drove they home after weekends, they often took off without a word of kindness as if I was obligated to care for them.

"But after staying with us for a few months, I began to see smiles on their faces. They began to say thanks. My son told me they were able to feel what it was to be loved and cared for."

Saying this, Xiao-xiang's face brightened up. It was a kind of comfort beyond words.

I said sincerely: "So your son has a loving heart indeed, doesn't he?"

Xiao-xiang nodded: "Yes. Unfortunately he still hasn't stepped out of the shadow of the past. Next month, I'm going to accompany him to court again. This time he may even be sentenced...; He broke other people's glass."

I looked at her. There was no despair in her eyes. There was peace and serenity, in which one would face disaster and give one's life in the hands of the Lord.

For her, sufferings have turned into blessings.

Liu Xiao-xiang, the main character in this article, came from Shanghai and she now lives in Los Angeles. After one year of intensive prayers, she has decided to serve the Lord full time. There are still obstacles, and she encourages brothers and sisters to pray for her.