God Led Me to Overcome the Devil’s Affliction
Wang Hua Henan Province
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| picture of the Church of Almighty God | Devil force |
Before I believed in God, I was a business woman. I managed the business well and earned some money. But while bustling about for a living, I fully experienced the fickleness of worldly relationship. Every day I not only had to rack my brains thinking of how to make money, but also had to deal with various inspections from the government departments. Speaking with tongue in cheek and getting along with others with a mask all day long, I felt so miserable and tired but had no other choice. Just when I was mentally and physically exhausted from rushing about for a living, I accepted the end-time gospel of Almighty God. I saw that in the word Almighty God expresses, there is the truth about human life, the disclosing of man’s corrupt substance, and the exposing of the root of man’s suffering, and also there is a bright way of human life pointed out to man. My heart was immediately attracted by God’s word and I firmly believed that this is the work of the true God and is a right way of human life. I was really so blessed that I could receive God’s end-time work today. Meanwhile, I also felt that too many people in the world who, like me, led an empty life and couldn’t find the direction of life needed the end-time salvation of Almighty God. I wished to preach the end-time gospel to more people who sought the truth, so that they could receive God’s salvation. Additionally, God moved me greatly and gave me faith and strength, so I always had endless words to say when talking about God’s work and salvation, and also brought over some people who truly sought the truth. I was so excited. At that time, my daughter just graduated from school. She saw that I was in a good mood every day after following Almighty God, and saw that the brothers and sisters who came to our house were all very simple and kind and it was particularly harmonious and joyful when we had meetings, talking heart to heart, sang hymns, and danced together. Therefore, she also longed for such a life and was willing to walk the way of believing in God. From then on, we did business at daytime and prayed, read God’s word, learned hymns, and fellowshipped about our knowledge of God’s word together at night. We lived a very happy life.
Just when we were immersed in God’s love and enjoying God’s warmth, unexpectedly, the CCP stretched out its talons to us, and brought us the nightmarish affliction, which is engraved on my heart. It was December 7, 2007. My daughter was washing clothes at home and I was ready to go out to perform duty when five or six undercover policemen suddenly broke in. One of them roared, “You are cultists! And you go out to preach to others!” Then he pointed at my daughter and said to another two evil policemen, “Take her away first!” Then, my daughter was taken away by the two evil policemen. The rest ones began to rummage through drawers and cabinets and even the pockets of the clothes. They made the bed and floor a complete mess and stomped and trampled on the bed wildly in leather shoes. In the end, they took away our books of God’s word, CDs, two CD players, two MP3 players, 2,000 yuan in cash, and one pair of gold earrings. Then, they pushed and shoved me into a police car. I asked them, “What law did we break in believing in God? Why do you arrest us?” Unexpectedly, they said brazenly before many onlookers, “We specially catch you, the believers in God.” I was very indignant in my heart: Are they the people’s police? They’re simply a gang of bandits, hoodlums, and gangsters who specially uphold the evil and bully the good and kind!
After arriving at the Public Security Bureau, the evil policemen handcuffed me and then dragged me into the interrogation room. Seeing their fierce manner, I couldn’t but feel afraid in my heart. Today I fall into the hand of these ferocious wolves and so many books of God’s word and CDs are searched out; they surely won’t let me off. If I can’t withstand their torture and become a Judas, I’ll be an eternal sinner who betrays God! So, I made a resolution to God: O God! It’s the time you test me. If I betray you and become a Judas, may your punishment come upon me and let me feel worse than death. Then, my heart calmed down. At that moment, a leader-looking evil policeman abused me, “You a woman, can’t you do anything else? Why must you lead your daughter to believe in God? She looks so pretty. If she goes to find a rich man, she can earn hundreds of thousands of yuan a year. Why fucking believe in God? Speak up! When did you begin to believe? Who preached to you? Where did you get the books?” Hearing his nonsense, I was extremely indignant. I never expected that a government official would actually speak out such base and shameless words. In their eyes, it becomes a proper thing to sell the body. They even instigate people to do these evil things. However, we who believe in God and worship God and try to be honest people are convicted as the criminals who do illegal things. And they even clamp down on and arrest us. Isn’t this bullying the good and kind and stifling justice? The CCP is really too evil and too dark! Seeing them ridiculous and unreasonable, I deeply knew that there was no way to reason with them, so I kept silent. As they saw that I said nothing the whole time, they forced me into the police car, threatening, “We’ve searched out so many things from your house. If you don’t confess honestly, we’ll shoot you outside!” Hearing such words, I couldn’t help fearing in my heart. They can do anything. If they really shoot me, I’ll never see my daughter again. The more I thought, the more I felt distressed. I kept calling to God in my heart, asking him to keep my heart and remove my fear and worry within. At that moment, God’s words came upon me, “Everything in the whole universe, without exception, is decided by me. Is there anything that is not in my hand?” (from “The First Piece of Word” of God’s Utterance to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh) “Faith is a single-plank bridge. Whoever fears death can hardly cross it. Whoever gives up his life can cross it securely. When man has the thought of timidity and fear, it is just the fooling of satan. It fears that we might pass the bridge of faith into God.” (from “The Sixth Piece of Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) At that time, my heart was suddenly enlightened. Yes, my daughter’s life and mine are both in God’s hand. It’s decided by God whether we’ll live or die. Satan the devil can’t control our destiny. Without God’s permission, nobody can take away our lives. Satan just uses my fatal spot to threaten and frighten me, trying to make me fall into its scheme and yield to it. I can never fall into its trap. Even if God permits me to bear a testimony of death, I’m willing to obey and I’d rather die than betray God. Thinking of that, I instantly had the determination to fight against satan to the end and was no longer timid and afraid.
The evil policemen drove me to the detention house. As soon as I entered the yard, the prison guards ordered me to strip down to my panties and take off my shoes. After searching me forcibly, they had me stand naked in the chilly yard for about a full half hour. I felt so cold that I couldn’t stand steadily and kept shivering all over, with my teeth chattering. Failing to search out anything, the guards took me to the cell and incited the head of the cell and the other prisoners, saying, “She’s a believer in Almighty God.” At these words, the prisoners rushed forward and forced me to take off my pants to my ankles and then pull them up over and over again. They kept laughing on the side. After I was made fun of and insulted, the head of the cell told me to learn to make goods with chicken feathers. As it was a delicate job, I still couldn’t do it the next day. Then the head took a bamboo rod and beat my hands hard. My hands were so swollen and painful that they couldn’t hold the chicken feather. When I was picking up the feather on the ground, she stomped on my hand and ground it hard. Instantly I felt sharp pain, as if my fingers were broken. But she still felt dissatisfied. She lashed my head with the bamboo rod several times, so that I became dizzy. In the end, she said ferociously, “You’ll stand watch tonight as punishment. Tomorrow you’ll be interrogated, so you must finish tomorrow’s work today. Otherwise, you have to stand the whole night tomorrow!” At the moment, I felt unspeakably oppressed and distressed. I thought to myself: These devils unite in afflicting me like this. I already can’t take it now; how can I pass the future days? Tears of sorrow and grievance ran down my cheeks. I poured out my grief to God inwardly, “O God! Facing these devils, I feel lonely, helpless, and frightened. I don’t know how to walk the future way. May you lead me so that I can become strong.” After the prayer, God’s words inspired me, “Dry your tears and do not be sad or distressed any more. Everything is manipulated by my hand. My purpose is to make you overcomers soon so that you can enter into glory together with me. Whatever comes along, you should have such thanks and praises to let my heart be satisfied.” (from “The Tenth Piece of Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) “The overcomer God speaks about is one who, under the influence of satan and the siege of satan, that is, in the forces of darkness, can still stand the testimony, and can still keep his original faith and keep his faithfulness to God. In any case, you can still keep your pure heart before God and keep your true love for God. Thus you have stood the testimony before God. This is the overcomer God speaks about.” (from “You Should Hold on to Your Faithfulness to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) God’s words greatly comforted my heart and also made me understand God’s will: It is through satan’s siege and persecution that God perfects man, so that man can break away from satan’s influence and enter God’s kingdom. In such a dark and evil world ruled by the CCP, people are only allowed to walk evil ways rather than the right way. The CCP simply wants to corrupt people to an extent that they’ll confound right and wrong, advocate evil, and betray justice, so as to achieve its purpose of devouring people in the end. If I can still not yield, keep my faith, faithfulness, and love before God, and stand testimony for God when besieged by the influence of darkness, I’ll be a real overcomer and can shame satan and glorify God. So, I prayed, “God, thank you for your timely revelation and leading, making me see the light in darkness, understand your will, and know what you want to gain from me. O God! You perfect my faith through the service of these devils and satans, and it’s really your uplifting for me. I believe all these are in your manipulation. You’re searching and watching all these in secret. I wish to stand testimony to satisfy you in this trial. May you give me faith and strength and the will to suffer, so that I won’t stumble or get lost no matter what sufferings I undergo.”
At 9 a.m. on the third day, the evil policemen took me to the interrogation room. One of them held my daughter’s cellphone and questioned, “You sent the message, right? You told your daughter that you would buy a house. It seems that you have lots of money.” Those evil policemen were really base. In order to squeeze my money, they didn’t miss any clue. I said, “I was joking with my daughter.” The evil policeman changed color. He took a notebook and lashed my head and face violently. I was beaten dizzy and my face felt painfully hot. He said through gnashing teeth, “Speak up! Where’s the money? If you don’t confess honestly, I’ll shoot you outside! Or sentence you to eight or ten years!” I said that I didn’t know. A big and tall evil policeman flew into a rage. He came up to seize me by the clothes on my back and threw me over two meters away. Then he kicked my head, back, and legs fiercely. As he kicked, he said, “How dare you not confess honestly! You said you didn’t know. Save that for the suckers! If you don’t tell, I’ll beat you to death today!” I clenched my teeth and fought the pain, and kept calling to God in my heart, “O God! These devils are too ferocious. Please give me strength and help me overcome their beating, and keep me so that I can stand testimony for you.” At that time, I thought of God’s words, “The good soldiers of Christ should be brave, get strong in spirit by relying on me, strive to be valiant warriors, and fight satan to the death.” (from “The Twelfth Piece of Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) “As long as you have one breath left, God will not let you die.” (from “The Sixth Piece of Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) God’s words gave me faith and strength, so that I overcame the bondage of death, felt God’s love for me, and saw that God was keeping me at every moment. When I was weak, helpless, distressed, and in despair, he gave me faith and strength, making me overcome satan’s temptation. At that moment, I thought to myself: The more you torture me like this, the more I see clearly your true face of being hostile to God. Even if I have to die, I’ll never give in to you. Me betray God! Not a chance! I felt much relieved at once. They beat me and interrogated me in the morning, and made me kneel on the icy-cold floor in the afternoon, torturing me till dark. In the end, I was beaten so much that I ached unbearably all over and couldn’t stand. Failing to get anything from the interrogation, the evil policemen sent me back to the detention house.
In the detention house, the prison guards were as vicious as scorpions. They never let me have a full meal but gave me an excessive workload, making me work over fifteen hours every day. If I couldn’t finish it, they would ask the head of the cell to torture me. As I was raw to the work at the beginning, the head hit my head with an iron hammer used for work. Right then, my head got a bump. Then she punched and kicked me, so that my whole body ached unbearably and my mouth and nose bled once again. Suffering such brutal torture, I couldn’t help thinking of my daughter. Since she was arrested, I didn’t know how the devils afflicted her, much less know how she passed her days in prison at that time. At the moment, I suddenly heard screams from the male cell next door. One of my cellmates said, “Here killing a person is just like killing a chick. Once, a male prisoner couldn’t bear the tortures and escaped to the back hill. After the guards found him, they beat him to death. Then, they told his family that he killed himself. And that case just ended up that way.” Hearing that, I was filled with horror and even more worried about my daughter in my heart. She was only nineteen years old. Since childhood, she hadn’t undergone any suffering, much less experienced any frustration. Those devils that killed without blinking an eye could do anything base. I didn’t know what tortures and afflictions my daughter would undergo. Being uncertain whether she was alive, I was greatly tormented in my heart. Even my dreams at night were all the terrible scenes that my daughter was being afflicted by the devils. I often jerked awake from dreams and couldn’t fall asleep afterward due to the refining.
The next day, the prison guards gave the order. Immediately, five or six prisoners came and cut my hair raggedly. Then, they pressed me to the floor and put on me the most terrible torture device in the prison, the “Iron Girl.” After that, the guards kept me standing from 5 a.m. to midnight (for nineteen hours on end), and told the head of the cell, “Watch her closely. If she wants to sleep, kick her!” So the head watched me every day. Whenever I closed my eyes, she would kick me. When it was time to sleep at night, four prisoners got me onto the table used for work at daytime, and carried me down the next morning. The snowstorms just happened those days and it was extremely cold. To torture me, the hateful guards had me wear that device for seven days and nights. I couldn’t eat, drink, defecate, or urinate by myself. When I needed to use the commode, I had to ask the prisoners who failed to finish the task to help me. The prisoners were busy with work every day. Every time, they just fed me perfunctorily and seldom gave me water. I really felt hungry and cold and it was so difficult to spend every second. Every morning when they lifted me off the table, I felt very miserable. I didn’t know how to pass through such a day and only hoped that it could get dark immediately and that the day would never break. Because that kind of torture device was too heavy, the next day my hands were swollen and purple, almost festering, and my whole body swelled like a balloon. (The swelling didn’t go down even after ten months.) At the time, I was tortured so much that I felt worse than death. I was distressed to a degree, so I made demands on God in my heart, “O God! I really can’t bear such torture anymore. Now I’m hovering between life and death. Please take away my breath sooner. I don’t want to live a minute longer.” When I made unreasonable demands on God, wanting to die to get free from the misery, I remembered a passage of his words, “Now you can’t die. You should clench your fists and live on. You should live for God once. If one has the truth, he will have this resolution and will no longer think of death. When death threatens you, you will say, ‘O God, I’m not willing to die. I still haven’t known you! I still haven’t repaid your love! I should try my best to know you before dying.’ … Aren’t the sufferings you encounter today the sufferings God undergoes? You are suffering with God, and God is accompanying man in the suffering; isn’t it so? Today you all have a part with Christ in his tribulation and kingdom and patience, and only thus will you gain glory in the end!” (from “How to Know Man’s Nature” in Christ’s Talks with Church Leaders and Workers) God’s words, like sweet dew, moistened my thirsty heart. Yes! Now is just the time God wants me to bear testimony for him. Won’t I humiliate God if I die now? To save us, God has been incarnated twice and undergone great humiliations and sufferings. In the Age of the Grace, he suffered the opposition, rejection, insult, scourging, and mocking of the whole Jewish nation, and in the end, he was crucified alive. In the end time, God again comes to work with a greater risk and temptation. God has been silently enduring the hunting and persecution and rumoring and smearing of the CCP government and the slander and rejection and condemnation and blasphemy of the entire religious world, without any complaint. Consider the sufferings Christ has undergone. What reason do I, a corrupt person who has enjoyed God’s salvation, have to avoid suffering? Today I can suffer with Christ and share with him in his kingdom, tribulation, and patient endurance; this is God’s grace and uplifting. However, now I only consider how to get free from the sufferings but don’t care for God’s will in the slightest. I really fail God’s thoughtful kind intention. God endures so many humiliations and sufferings and pays so much price on men just to regain them from satan’s hand and make a group of men who can bear testimony for him before satan. This is what God has been expecting since the creation of the world. I’ve enjoyed so much grace and blessing from God. Today God lets me bear testimony for him before satan; this is my honor. No matter how painful and difficult it is, I’ll live tenaciously to satisfy God’s heart. God’s words aroused my heart and soul, making me understand his will and no longer think of dying. I only wished to endure all sufferings and submit to God’s manipulation and arrangement. Due to the seven days and nights of physical punishment, I was tortured within an inch of my life. The skin on my feet all peeled off and my lips peeled layer after layer. Later, I heard a male prisoner next door say, “A strong male prisoner over thirty years old died from it.” At that word, I kept thanking God in my heart, because I knew it wasn’t out of my good luck but was out of God’s leading and keeping. It was God’s words with life force that supported me to pull through it. Otherwise, I, a frail woman, had long died from that kind of torture device.
After experiencing that cruel torture, I saw God’s almightiness and even more realized my incompetence: In the trial, I even can’t take care of myself but worry that my daughter can’t stand firm. Isn’t this unnecessary worry? Her destiny is in God’s hand. My worry can’t help her at all but can only let satan take the opportunity to fool and afflict me. All matters and things are under God’s manipulation and arrangement. I should commit my daughter to God and look to God. I believe that since God leads me in the tribulation, he will also lead her to pass through the hurdle. So I prayed to God and thought of God’s words, “In which aspect man should undergo sufferings or frustrations has been predestined by God and is not demanded by man; this is absolutely true. Being able to accept the trial of God’s word and suffer in God’s word is what every believer in God should have. Have you seen this clearly?” (from “A True Love for God Is Spontaneous” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) God’s words completely turned around my state. Yes, what hardship one should experience and what sufferings one should undergo were predestinated by God. The sufferings my daughter undergoes are also out of the permission of God’s throne. Although I can’t see it clearly or know it, I’m sure there is God’s love in it, for God’s love for man is most practical and true. I’m willing to commit my daughter to God, let God rule over and arrange for her, and obey everything from God. Just when I dropped all those and was willing to obey God’s manipulation, I finally saw my daughter in court. She secretly told me that she saw God’s blessing after she underwent some sufferings and tortures under God’s leading. God maneuvered the rich prisoners in the cell to help her. Some gave her clothes and some bought her food and drink; when the head of the cell picked on her, trying to bully her, someone sprang to her defense; and so on. Through such experience, my daughter had some knowledge of God’s wonderful and wise work and realized that God’s love couldn’t be described by any words. Hearing what she said, I was so happy, with my eyes full of tears of gratitude to God. Through her, I saw God’s wonderful deed and God’s almightiness and sovereignty once again, and saw that it was God who had been leading and keeping the two of us to get through the tribulation and persecution. Therefore, I had more faith in God.
In the days that followed, the prison guards still forced me to work, regardless of my swelling and aching all over. Not long afterward, I was so tired that my old wounds weren’t healed but fresh wounds appeared. My lumbar vertebrae were too painful to be straightened, which made me unable to get to sleep at night. Even so, the prison guards still didn’t let me off. They asked the head of the cell to pick on me in every aspect. As I had no money to buy them food, the head kicked my private parts fiercely. I dodged instinctively. She flew into a rage and kicked and stomped on my body wildly. Because there was no oil in the vegetables we ate, I often had constipation. Once I stayed a little longer in the washroom, they abused me and had me dump excrement and urine for half a month as punishment. Sometimes it wasn’t my turn to stand watch, but they made me stand watch at night with a random excuse. And they tried to fine me fifty yuan, saying that I used more raw materials when working. One of the guards took the opportunity to take me to the office, tempting me, “If you can tell me with whom you believe in God, I’ll speak to the court for your lighter sentence, and the fifty yuan needn’t to be fined.” Those evil policewomen were full of wiles and adopted hard and soft means, forcing me to betray God by every possible means. It was really a vain idea! I firmly turned her down.
On August 25, 2008, the CCP government, on the charge of “taking part in a cult and disrupting the enforcement of the law,” sentenced me to three years of hard labor and sent me to the provincial women’s labor camp to serve my sentence. My daughter was sentenced to one year of hard labor and served her sentence in the local detention house.
After I stayed in the prison for half a month, the prison guards would rearrange our cells. I heard that the work in the older team was lighter. Afflicted severely in the detention house, I already broke down, without strength to do heavy work anymore. So I prayed to God about this matter, asking him to make a way out. If I needed to continue to experience that environment, I was willing to obey. I thanked God for hearing my prayer. I was assigned to the older team smoothly. Others all said it was beyond expectation. I knew clearly in my heart that it was God who was manipulating everything and was sympathizing with my weakness. There the prison guards said very nice words, “Whoever works well and earns more points will get a reduced sentence. We won’t show partiality to anyone….” I believed their words, thinking that the guards there would be better than those in the detention house, so I worked overtime. In the team consisting of nearly three hundred prisoners, I usually ranked the top ten in working. However, when it came to remission, the guards only gave it to those who often fought or those who bought them gifts, while my sentence wasn’t reduced even by one day. In order to get a remission, one prisoner sweated her guts out working. However, a guard said to her, “You’re so able; how come you haven’t been sentenced to life imprisonment?” Hearing those words, I really hated myself for being too blind to see clearly the CCP’s substance of being fierce and atrocious, thus being deceived by their lies. Actually God has said, “For the sky above the whole mankind is turbid and dark and not at all clear, the world is in total darkness, and living in this world, men ‘cannot see their hand when they stretch it out’ and cannot see the sun when they look up….” (from “What Is a Real ‘Man’?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh) Through the disclosing of God’s word and by comparison with the fact, I saw that the CCP government is in total darkness from top to bottom, without any fairness or justice. The evil policemen only knew to cheat and fool us with lies and simply didn’t treat us as humans. The prisoners were the money-making tools in their eyes. The harder one worked, the less chance they would give him a commuted sentence. They wanted the prisoners to serve all along, being their oxen and horses to squeeze more money. To let us finish the work quickly, those evil policemen even didn’t allow us to go to the washroom. Several times, I really couldn’t hold on and urinated into my pants. As I was excellent in working, after knowing it, the main team tried to transfer me there to be a “role model.” I already saw clearly their ugly face, knowing that if I was transferred there, they would certainly intensify their efforts to force me to work. Fearing that I would be transferred, I kept praying to God, “O God! I know it’s the devil’s trap. But I have no way to get free from it. May you make a way out for me.” To my surprise, I couldn’t climb up the stairs after praying. In the hot weather, my hands were cold and curled up, even unable to be opened with force, and they were black and blue. The officer of the main team said that I was pretending to be ill, and ordered two prisoners to carry me to the upstairs to work. I could only call to God desperately. Then, I fell headfirst from the third floor to the second floor. Seeing that, they were scared and then let me back on the older team. Afterward, my body wasn’t injured at all. I saw God’s keeping for me again.
In prison, the believers in Almighty God were convicted as political offenders. The CCP devils monitored us in all aspects. We even had no right to talk. If I said a word with someone, the prison guards would question what I had said when seeing that. And they asked the head of the cell to watch me at night, checking if I told others things about believing in God. Every time my family came to see me, the guards would force me to follow them to say words of slandering God; otherwise they would intentionally disturb me from talking with my family. (There was a time limit for talking with one’s family.) Because I knew it was offending God to say those words, whenever I met such situation, I would pray to God silently, “God! Today it is satan’s temptation that comes upon me. Please keep my mouth from saying words that offend your disposition.” As I never said them, they could do nothing about it in the end.
The three years of prison life made me see clearly the CCP government’s true face. It acts one way in public and another in private, persecutes and disturbs God’s work in every possible way under the camouflage of “freedom of belief,” cruelly tortures and brutally mistreats believers in God, and uses all base means to force people to reject and betray God and yield to its power, so as to achieve its sinful purpose of occupying and controlling people forever. Man was created by God and ought to worship God. However, the CCP government does its utmost to banish God’s coming, which truly exposes its evil essence of running counter to right principles and acting against Heaven. After experiencing that persecution and tribulation, although I underwent some physical sufferings, I didn’t regret, because I didn’t undergo that suffering in vain. Through experiencing that environment, I saw more clearly satan the devil’s substance of being hostile to God and hated it more deeply and more thoroughly. Meanwhile, I had some knowledge of God’s wonderful deed and God’s love and salvation for mankind, practically tasted Christ’s beauty and good and humbleness and the sufferings Christ undergoes for saving man, and had deeper faith and love for God. When I was weak and feeble, God gave me faith and strength time and again, so that I could fight against satan to the end. When I was distressed and dispirited, God comforted me with his word. When I was in misery and despair, God encouraged me with his word. When I was on the verge of death, God’s word gave me the power and courage to live. Every time I was in danger, it was God who stretched out his hand of salvation in time and kept me. After I got out of prison, due to the CCP devil’s sowing discord, my relatives and friends all rejected and kept away from me, but the brothers and sisters were concerned about and took care of me and brought me all daily necessities, which was the warmth I couldn’t taste in any other place. Thank God for his salvation for me. No matter how difficult the future way is, I’ll follow God to the end and pursue to live out the meaningful life to repay God’s love.
Source: "God Led Me to Overcome the Devil’s Affliction" in The Overcomers’ Testimonies
Recommendation: About the Church of Almighty God | Eastern Lightning
Recommendation: About the Church of Almighty God | Eastern Lightning
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