My Family's Thirty-seven Years

A special prayer

By Gao Lu-ke

When my elderly father was in America, he heard his son in China was being persecuted and his marriage prevented because of him living in America. So he decided to abandon his life of plenty and give up all his kitchenware with which he made his living. He was willing to come back to China even though he knew he could expect a lot of hardship.

I

Dear Heavenly Father, today is a very special day. It is the first Father's Day of the 21^st century. My wife and I, our son, daughter, daughter-in-law and our granddaughter all come to you with our total gratitude to offer you thankfulness and praise.

Dear Heavenly Father, we sincerely thank you. Today I am still alive to speak to you because your almighty hands have enabled the doctor to successfully conduct complex surgery on me so that I am out of the valley of shadow of death.

I'd like to also take this opportunity to specially thank you for giving me such a wonderful wife. It was forty-five years ago when you made me a classmate of hers in Harbin Industrial University, so that we had the opportunity to get to know and love each other.

I came from a family that had been overseas Chinese workers for several generations. My wife, however, had a high-ranking father who joined the Communist Party as early as 1938. During the age of class struggle where human nature was ridiculously suppressed, it would have been utterly impossible for a man and a woman like us to get married. But, Heavenly Father, you made it a reality.

True friendship emerges when disaster hits. It was a cold night 40 degrees below zero about 41 years ago. I was suffering from an intestinal obstruction followed by a wrong diagnosis. When I was sent to the operating theatre, about a foot of my intestine had already become septic. This was my first experience of walking into and out of the valley of the shadow of death. It was a drought year when everybody lived on rationed food and went hungry. I was hospitalized with no relatives around me. At that time, we were merely classmates, but the young woman who is now my wife took on the responsibility that only a mother or a wife would take. From the beginning to the end she kept me company at my sick bed. She would rather go hungry herself and save food for my recovery. In order to buy much-needed eggs for me, she traveled through snowfields to reach remote villages for help. Oh Heavenly Father! It was you who gave her strength so that I recovered, was able to re-establish myself and complete my studies.

Dear Heavenly Father, as we were about to graduate and start work, unexpected political persecution fell on me. Because my father was in another country, I was very close to being accused of spying and being an anti-Party reactionary. Heavenly Father, it was you who gave us hope for justice; it was your love that helped us go through daily hardship, heavy labor, separation of family members and years of anxiety.

Dear Heavenly Father, at our wedding there was no bridal veil. There was only a marriage certificate printed on a rough piece of paper and my wife had to pay for that by breaking up with her father. There was no wedding ceremony or wedding banquet; there was just our private family meal to celebrate our happiness.

When the two of us came to Guangzhou from the North, my wife met my father for the first time and her first words as a daughter-in-law were: "Old Daddy, how you have suffered in all these years!" My father also wept but he replied with a smile: "It is good to be home." The old daddy in front of us no longer appeared like the strong cook that he had when he came back in 1959. He looked extremely skinny. Oh yes, when he heard his son in China was being persecuted and his marriage prevented because of him living in America, he immediately decided to abandon his life of plenty and give up all his kitchenware with which he made his living. He was willing to come back to China even though he knew he could expect a lot of hardship. He had first become an overseas worker at the age of fourteen and he had been separated from his wife and son for thirty-seven years. There was so much to ask about but he only said, "It is good to be home." This was his life-long wish. Although he did not know his sacrifice would not be enough to keep his children out of trouble, he was able to meet with his daughter-in-law for the first time and he was able to witness his son's married life. And this was his greatest joy and satisfaction. He learned that for eight full years before her marriage, his daughter-in-law had made huge sacrifices for his son's health and during his political persecution. And her sacrifice was immeasurable.

II

Oh Lord! On this special Father's Day, I as a son want to also thank my deceased father. My whole family will forever remember him because of his life-long sufferings for his wife and son and his hard labor for posterity. May you, Lord, have pity on him too!

Oh Lord! As a son-in-law I also want to thank my recently deceased father-in-law. It was not his will to have to break up with his daughter. It was not his fault either. It was simply a tragic moment. When the Cultural Revolution was over and his daughter went home to meet him, his first words were also: "It is good to be home!" This is a common response of all fathers to their children. My father-in-law spent his whole life teaching; he despised corruption; he was righteous and kind, respectable and popular. May you, Heavenly Father, also have pity on him!

Dear Heavenly Father, my wife and I have been married for thirty-seven years and you know every moment of our lives, tragic or otherwise. The first ten years after we became parents of a son and a daughter marked the maddening period of the Red Guards and the early period of the Cultural Revolution. No one knew when tragedy would fall on him or her or their family. Famine also lasted for several years.

Shortly after our son was born, in order to help my wife promote lactation, I set out before dawn and rode a bike for over ten miles to buy pigs' feet from remote villages. My joy was beyond words when I did get them. Although I was soaked with sweat, I was completely overcome with joy. One day, our son had a high fever of over 103ºF. and for over ten days we carried him and went all over the place looking for a good doctor. It was through your almighty power that we experienced a miracle during which a mother went sleepless for over ten days. When fever finally went away and a follow-up examination ensured everything was back to normal, how joyful we were as parents!

I also remember the time our daughter suffered from pneumonia. Doctors in our nearby hospital declared they couldn't help. She got worse and it became life threatening. So we had to arrange to send her to the provincial hospital in Shandong. Time was of the essence, but we couldn't find an suitable vehicle to transport her. In order to save her life, my wife and I had to take turns carrying her as we ran to the provincial hospital about four miles away. We finally reached there and saw the doctor bring her into the emergency room. I believe it was you who pitied us and gave us strength. It was the omnipresent loving Heavenly Father who performed miracles.

III

Dear Heavenly Father, your wonderful guidance and daily protection kept our children free from negative impact in the wicked society they lived in; rather they worked hard and completed college. They did not fall into the temptation of the modern materialistic society; rather they learned to live simply. They were not confused in the face of the monetary environment; rather they maintained their moral standard. What was especially important was they got to know and accept the Lord Jesus their Eternal Savior, both while in different countries. They came back into the bosom of the Heavenly Father and became Christians.

Dear Heavenly Father, it is your love that encourages good in our family. In front of your omnipresence, however, I must admit that we also have quarrels at home, and the root cause of these are my arrogance, stubbornness and bad temper. Oh Heavenly Father! Please forgive my sins. In front of you I'd like to say this to my wife and children: "Sorry, I'd like to do better." May the Lord discipline me and guide me.

Dear Heavenly Father, I'd also like to thank you for taking care of my mother who is nearly 90 years old. Her whole life has not been easy. It was your grace that she was able to come under your name at an advanced age. May the Heavenly Father protect my relatives and friends so that we all enjoy peace and joy!

IV

Dear Heavenly Father, on this special day, I'd like to thank Christian brothers and sisters and pastors in various churches. I thank them because they prayed for me so that I was able to confront surgery with calm. I knew your Spirit was with me. Right after the surgery, they came to visit me and held hands praying for me. They greatly strengthened my confidence in my recovery. It was their love that gave me New Hope for tomorrow.

Dear Heavenly Father, I also want to thank you that I am able to receive ongoing good care from the hospital in Auckland, New Zealand with world-class equipment and world-class doctors.

During my hospitalization, I witnessed and experienced something of the nation of New Zealand that was established with Christian values and also humanitarian passion and true love in this western society. Five times in one day I accidentally broke my colostomy bag and made a big mess in my sick bed, which made extra work for the nurses, but they still smiled a lot. In the first few days and nights after the surgery, my blood pressure was very unstable and it fell near or below the lower limit. The nurses and the doctors were very worried. They ran back and forth; they monitored me throughout the night and their hard work was beyond words. And then time and time again they became really happy whenever their patient's condition improved. Every time I tried to express my gratitude to them, they gave me the common response of putting up their thumbs. At first I didn't understand this. Later they told me they were pointing upward with their thumbs to express gratitude to the Heavenly Father! Oh Lord! From what they did I was able to see your teaching of loving your neighbor and loving each other. It was so real. God was in their hearts and they were able to humble themselves and return all the glory to you.

There were six beds in the room I was in. The patient turnover rate was pretty high and I was able to meet nearly fifty patients in less than three weeks of my stay there. These patients came from different ethnic backgrounds but they were mostly older people. Among their visitors were their wives, sons and daughters-in-law, daughters and sons-in-law and even their grandchildren. I especially noticed that young people from each family showed their great care and love to the sick. Many of them came to visit from far away. Some had taken a plane and others had driven for over ten hours. One young man came to see his father by wheelchair. One elderly patient had two daughters and three sons who lived in different places and who rarely had a chance to get together. This time, however, all of them brought their children and came to the hospital in Auckland from all directions. All of a sudden our room was packed. The nurses had to push the patient's bed to the TV room and let the crowd of almost twenty people, spanning three generations, get together right there. Their passion, their love and their warmth were beyond words. I had been told western younger people did not care about their aged parents. What I saw, however, was just the opposite. I myself also received true care and love from my wife, my son and daughter-in-law and my daughter. All of them made me believe more strongly that our Heavenly Father was the true source of love.

Dear Heavenly Father, I as a father as well as a son have made a very long prayer on this special day. Oh Heavenly Father! You know every single word of my prayer came from the bottom of my heart. I pray that you will listen. In Jesus' name I pray! Amen!

The author used to work in China for a research institute, a factory and a government agency. In 1995 he settled down in Auckland, New Zealand.