It Suddenly Dawned On Me

By Hong Ju

The music at the festival

I came to America following the 1989 student movement. I had personally experienced and witnessed the movement, and its consequences had completely shattered my idealism. The only plan of action I had was: "Go! go to America!" How I yearned for that country, the land of the free!

I remember one day shortly after I came to America, when I was waiting for a school bus at the student center. It was a festival day on campus. Some students were setting up a sound system on a wooden stage at one corner of the square, a black student was playing his guitar and singing - the melody of his song touched me right to the heart. There were a lot of other students in the square: some just sitting there listening to the music, some in small groups debating something, some simply wandering by, some looking at a map. One student was standing in another corner of the square making a public speech. How carefree they all were! This was freedom!

Those young people were there in the bright sunshine freely enjoying the rights they had always had. So why did we in China have to pay so dearly for just a little bit of freedom? I could not restrain my tears.

When I finally arrived at my destination and found the art professor I was looking for, he asked me why I was looking so sad. I tried to express my feelings in my broken English. This professor had been to China. On his desk was a piece of rock with the word LOVE carved on it. He solemnly picked up the rock and placed it in my hand; then grasping my hands tightly he gazed into my eyes with deep sincerity, as if the word LOVE would be able to give me comfort. Although I was a bit awed, I was confused too. Had he misunderstood me? I knew my English was not yet good enough, but it couldn't be that bad. Even so, this scene refused to be erased from my memory.

The little paper kids on Christmas trees

After that I did indeed start noticing many signs of love among American people. Strangers would smile at you and greet you. If you were examining a street-map, someone would come up and ask you if you were lost. If you were carrying something heavy, your neighbor would offer to help. One day I had walked quite a way along the street when a car stopped beside me. The driver said he had seen me twice, first when he was filling gas at the gas station and then when he was done with his errands, he saw me again walking along the street. So he pulled over and asked if I needed a ride. Another day I was riding a school bus. When the bus stopped at the station, I saw a coke can lying on the bench at the station. Before I knew it, the bus driver had quickly stepped off the bus, picked up the can and thrown it into the trash can before resuming his duty as a driver. One of my American classmates always emptied her coke can and rinsed it before she threw it into the trash can. She said this would help the garbage man. I believed these actions reflected more than a level of civilization and education. It was love; it was real concern for other people.

What about us then? We had all received higher education in China and had enrolled in renowned universities as top-notch students with enviable test scores. But when the Chinese women's volleyball team won the championship, we were so excited that we partied all night long. The next morning, the street next to the men's dormitory was covered with broken beer bottles. Even in the morning, there were still students throwing beer bottles into the street, ignoring the safety of passers-by. Our educational system had failed to remind us that we were causing the street sweepers a big headache. Perhaps we had never really taken street sweepers seriously anyway.

What impressed me the most was my first Christmas in America. I was walking through a shopping mall when I saw a couple of huge Christmas trees there. What was unique about these trees was that they were covered with little pieces of paper in the shape of little kids. On each piece of paper was a child's name along with an address. One of the trees had boys' names on it and the other tree had girls' names. I asked an old lady nearby what was going on. She told me that family members put their children's names on the trees so that other loving people could take down a piece of paper and send Christmas gifts to the children whose names and addresses appeared there. I felt a warm inner glow. I supposed I would forever believe the world was full of love if I were one of those little girls who received a Christmas gift from a distant stranger on Christmas Eve.

Mixed feelings

That same Christmas Eve I was attracted by the sound of church music and stopped outside the window of a church to look inside. I saw people in the church wearing white robes and singing, with candles in their hands: "Silent night, Holy night, All is calm, All is bright..." The sound of of the music wafted out through the window panes and was transformed into such an irresistible force that all my instincts urged me to become part of it. Actually what was I really looking for? I had struggled along in Hainan Province for five years. I had lost my family and at the age of thirty had come to a foreign country on the other side of the ocean. I had come in search of freedom, but what I needed most was warmth and love. My tears started to flow. That call I was hearing had to have come from some non-human source.

There was a little Chinese Bible study group in the town where my school was located. The people in the group often ran activities and invited us to join in. I was feeling well-disposed toward Christianity at that time, so when they first approached me I gladly accepted their invitation. The activities were well-organized, there was plenty of food and I got acquainted with new friends, but the part I couldn't stand was the preaching that followed the activities. To my mind, 20^th-century science had long ago got rid of superstition; religion was no more than rituals and gods were created by human beings to comfort themselves. Why, then, would these people stand there and spend over an hour talking about spirits and devils as if they were real? I did not attend to a single word of the preaching; I was just rather amused, then I started to feel bored. When the preaching was finally over, I immediately slipped away, vowing never to go back there again.

Now that they got hold of my name, however, they began to call me whenever there were activities on. Since the word no had never been in my vocabulary, every time they called I had to come up with an excuse not to accept their invitation. But they kept on. Then when I ran out of excuses, or ran out of things to do or simply didn't feel like cooking, I started accepting their invitations. But no matter how often I went I never made any spiritual progress; I simply rejected everything they said.

Nevertheless, I did start to discover some good things about them. Their activities were different from those run by other organizations. Although they all looked a bit dull and unexciting, I was surprised that everything they did was well-organized: there was always plenty of food and there was always good-quality child care unlike those noisy activities run by the student union, where kids ran all over the place and the food was unattractive. I started to realize that the quality of the activities did not necessarily depend on the talent of the organizers, but that essentially this was a group of people quietly and freely giving their own energy and time.

Why would these people so willingly give themselves like that? I supposed they weren't so stupid as to believe that, by working extra hard in this world, they could secure a ticket to heaven when they died. I believed they were different from me. I did not have much respect for them, but I was willing to make friends with them. They always greeted me with joyful smiles as if I was a very important person. And I felt pretty good about that too because, aside from my parents and myself, nobody had really ever taken me seriously.

With these mixed feelings, I often attended church activities and Bible study meetings. No matter how many times I went there, however, I did not change in the slightest. What they talked about was still quite meaningless to me and I always seemed to be able to find problems with what they said. I even felt that they were to be pitied because they were treasuring a book written by human beings, taking every single word of it as truth. My own experience told me that there was no absolute truth in this world, and that only this statement was absolute truth! I felt sorry for them: Oh my blindfolded friends, all you do for me will end up for nothing! Can't you see that it is impossible for me to believe in your God?

Although I had no enviable achievements to my credit, my heart was still pretty arrogant. I believed that on this issue I was absolutely right. They kept telling me that lots of scholars were also Christians, but I believed that even people with academic achievements were not necessarily good thinkers.

My father's camera

I gradually realized, however, that these people actually had much clearer minds than I did. They truly believed in what they believed. I began to question whether I myself was really as clear as I had thought. I began to realize that while outwardly I was pretty clear, on the inside I was not at all clear. I could be clear about how to judge other people but I was not at all clear about judging myself. I thought I could scrutinize myself with complete objectivity and justice, but in reality I easily became selfish and impatient. This was not just my problem. Everybody else seemed to have the same kind of problem. It seems as if our eyes are blinkered so that we can only see the world within a very narrow range.

I remember my parents once came to America and we lived together for a while. After my father retired, he had almost buried himself in his hobby of photography. He was willing to spend all his savings to buy the best camera and lens he could find on the market. If my mother expressed any contrary opinion about his hobby, he would jump up and down till she agreed with him. Because they spent all their savings on photographic equipment, they could not even afford to buy a VCR. My father argued that he enjoyed a simple lifestyle and so he had no need for a VCR. My mother, however, wasn't so simplistic. At the end of a busy day, she liked to sit down and watch TV or movies. My father simply pretended he didn't know what she was talking about. He often tried to explain to us that his camera was not really the best on the market and there were a lot of better ones out there.

Every time he upgraded his camera, he would say he was now completely satisfied and he would not look for another upgrade. But then whenever there was a good opportunity, he would forget his promise. When he came on his visit to America, he was determined to find an even better lens for his camera. I took him to Cam Cord, one of the finest camera stores in America. There were all kinds of cameras and accessories, new or old, high-tech or low-tech, and the salespeople were very professional. One day we went to Cam Cord again and met a salesman who had worked there for over ten years. The salesman enviously examined my father's lens for a long time. Then he told us that he had only seen this kind of lens in the catalog, and this was the first time he had ever seen a real one. He also told us that the store did not carry this kind of lens; if somebody was interested in buying one, they had to place a special order with the manufacturer. My father was extremely proud of himself when he heard this. His monthly income had been in the teens and even now it was only between 100 and 200 dollars. And yet he could afford to possess a rare lens that even an experienced camera salesman had never seen! I was really amazed.

When they were leaving America, my mother wanted to buy a special kind of medication for herself. When they had first arrived, my mother could hardly sleep because of the time difference. It took her almost two months to recover after I had bought this drug for her. Now that they were ready to go back to China, my mother was going to face the challenge of time difference again. Worried that she would suffer for another two months, she bought two extra bottles of the drug for herself. One day we found the same drug in a store with improved content and at a lower price. So she bought a couple more bottles, thinking they could also make ideal gifts. I was extremely shocked when I heard my father say, "You've already got two bottles. Why did you buy some more? How greedy you are!"

A bottle of of the drug cost only three dollars. And that was enough to make him consider that my mother was being greedy. Didn't he realize how greedy he was by collecting expensive cameras? My father loved my mother very much and he was also well-educated. But what on earth had blocked his eyes to make him became so unreasonable?

My husband's birthday

Then look at me myself. One morning my husband and I had a little dispute, and we hadn't reached an agreement before we went off to work. He was clearly in the wrong but he refused to accept any kind of criticism. When we came back home in the afternoon, both of us seemed to have forgotten about our unpleasant experience that morning. So we played ball together as usual. Then for some reason I brought up the subject of our dispute again, thinking he might be able to accept my criticism after all, now that he had calmed down. But he still refused to accept it. When I insisted, he just accused me of not loving him any more. I was so angry that I refused to talk to him all night. The next morning, I believed I had forgiven him; so I tried to make peace. Then he said, "You forgot that yesterday was my birthday." His words made me feel very bad about myself. It was the second year of our marriage and I had already forgotten his birthday! And yet I could not forget any unpleasant words he might have said to me. When he came back home the previous afternoon, he must have hoped I had forgotten about our morning tiff, or at least that I would not have brought it up again because it was his special day. He must have been very disappointed when he stepped in the door and there was no sign of birthday celebration. Then he might have thought his wife was trying to give him a surprise later on, but he waited in vain till bed time, only to see his wife launch another attack on him! What had made my behavior so ridiculous?

It was not just me or my parents; everybody is the same. It is not just Chinese people; the whole world is the same. If only we had the opportunity of going out into space and looking down at the earth we live on! In the solar system, in the Milky Way, in the nebula where the Milky Way is and among the billions of stars of the endless universe, our earth is no more than a drop of water in the ocean floating in the darkness of the universe. On this tiny little planet, however, are 5 billion people whose lives are extremely fragile. If the earth were a little closer to the sun, they would die of heat; if the earth were a little farther from the sun, they would freeze to death. If the ice in Antarctica melted a little more, they would die in the flood; if they didn't get enough rain, they would die of drought. A slight collision with a little star could bump the earth out of its orbit; our ozone layer has a big hole in it which is enough to cause seventy thousand people in America alone to suffer from skin cancer each year... Everybody knows all these facts, but who really cares? Every day they scurry back and forth. They even point missiles at each other and deploy large numbers of nuclear weapons all over the place, enough to destroy the whole earth many times over. What has made them all so short-sighted and so selfish?

There has to be something very wrong with human beings to make every one of us live such ego-centric lives. We take advantage of everything, and everybody around us becomes our potential enemy. It is not that we want to be like this; when it comes to personal advantage, we simply can't help it. Family members can fight against each other; loving couples can also turn into lifelong enemies. But our real enemies are no other than ourselves. Why can we never defeat this enemy of self? Isn't this the root cause of all the world's sufferings?

It suddenly dawns on me

I remember one day I was reading the Gospel of Mark. The word Jesus preached when he first commenced his ministry was, "Repent!" Unless every one of us repents, the entire human species will continue to live in sufferings, misunderstanding, hurt and hatred. What amazes me about Christianity is that God, when dealing with our sins, did not choose to bring us to judgment or punishment, but he sent Jesus to die for our sins! What does this exemplify? Love! At that time, however, my heart had no room for love; I didn't bother trying to figure out if God's love was true because I refused to accept this as the truth.

Three years went by, then one day all of a sudden an idea struck my mind : what if God is indeed real and He does indeed exist? Simple as it might seem, this thought hit me like a bolt of lightning. All of the Gospel messages I had heard but had so far rejected came back to my mind. I tried to think a little more, but I couldn't because I began to experience a strong sense of joy. It was an inexplicable joy such as I had never experienced before, raising me right up to heaven. I felt as if I was going to explode. Oh, I see it, I see it! Oh Heavenly Father, here I come!

I don't remember how I went home, but I knew I had been saved from then on. It was as if a bright light were illuminating my dark life, I was able to see other people more clearly and I was able to see myself more clearly. Whatever it was that had blocked my eyes had been suddenly removed.

I have changed. From a person full of complaints, I am now full of gratitude. From an ego-centric person, I am now able to care for others' needs. From a stubborn person, I am now willing to make concessions. I have experienced a completely new kind of freedom. At first I did not understand how it was ever possible for me to gain freedom after surrendering to God . I had fought for freedom of action and ideology, but what I have now gained is freedom of spirit.

One day the words of Jesus came to me: "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin". (John 8:34) "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32)

These words really woke me up. What had limited me in the past was not my external environment. What had limited me was my own arrogance, selfishness and disobedience. Once we are free from this bondage, we gain spiritual freedom because we are now living in the truth.

I hope that each one of us can come to live under the sovereignty of God, so that we can experience his love, grace, freedom and awesomeness!

The author graduated from the Electric Engineering department in the Science University of China. She earned an MS degree in Artificial Intelligence and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering. Now she works in Colombia, Ohio.