(Clearwisdom.net) I am a 43-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from the countryside of Hebei Province. On July 14, 2007, a hard lump suddenly appeared on my face. It did not hurt and I did not pay attention to it. However, in about two days, half of my face swelled up. I started to send forth righteous thought to deal with this situation. Three to four days passed and the swelling persisted. Fellow practitioners then came to my home to read the Fa with me, and help me to send forth righteous thoughts. Several days passed and the swelling became worse. The left half of my face was three times the size of my right side, and even my left forehead became quite swollen. My left eye could not open and the left side of my chin was also inflamed. I could not open my mouth or eat anything. When some fellow practitioners looked at my deformed face, they could not hold back their tears.

My mother is also a practitioner. She had tears in her eyes when she saw me suffering, and asked me to go to the hospital. I said, "Mother, you do not need to persuade me. Nothing can move my righteous thought of believing in Master and Falun Gong. I have Master and I have the Fa. I will be all right." In the evening, when I was offering incense to Master, I clearly knew that he was next to me and protecting me. In about half a month, the swelling increased and became more painful. I was somewhat muddleheaded. I started to recite the Fa. By that time, I had difficulty reciting Lunyu, which I could normally recite fluently, and I could only recite a few poems from Hong Yin. I was persistent and just kept on reciting the ones I could remember. I fell asleep while I was reciting the Fa. When I woke up in pain, I kept on reciting the Fa, and then I would fall asleep again.

In my dream, I saw that Master connected all the meridian channels on my face, and these meridian channels criss-crossed my face like the threads woven into cloth. I woke up at that moment and there was a foul odor in my mouth. The flesh inside my mouth and around my lips had broken open. A lot of pus came oozing out. I spat it out. I was then able to open my mouth halfway. However, there was still a lump on the inside of my cheek. That area gradually began to fester, and two days later, I used tweezers to pull out a round shaped growth, more than one inch in diameter from the infected area. There was no more bleeding or pus. There appeared to still be something in there, but I could not get it out. The next day, I ask Master to help me, and after I uttered those words, I used tweezers to pull out another dark brown growth. It was about one inch long and finger sized. I was very surprised. My mother broke it with her hands; it was a blood clot. I then felt a pit, the size of a ping-pong ball, in the back of my head on the left side. This lump was inside of my head.

What was happening to me? I recall when I was 29; my husband and I went out to do business selling clothes. We hired two motorized three wheelers, and loaded them with clothes. I then sat on top of the pile on one of the vehicles. The clothes were not tied down, and I was worried about falling off. The owner of the three wheelers, however, assured me that he would drive slowly. When he started driving he drove faster and faster, and at a turn, I was thrown off the vehicle and fell onto the road face up. I felt my head with my hand and there was no bleeding. I then did not pay much attention to it. Before long, I felt pressure in my head and I could not recall anything. The symptom did not last long and I felt alright soon afterward. Within several months, I started having leg pain and back pain. I went to a hospital to have a checkup and was told there had been some internal bleeding in my head; the blood clot had suppressed some nerves. Surgery was needed to treat the problem and it would cost 50,000 to 60,000 yuan; I could not afford it. The symptoms were getting worse. When I was feeling helpless, during the Chinese Lunar Calendar New Year in 1996, I heard that there were Falun Gong practitioners in my village teaching people the practice. I felt that something was turning in my stomach. Later I learned that it was Falun. Several days later, on the ninth day of the New Year by the Lunar Calendar, I started practicing Falun Gong and conducting myself according to "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Tolerance." Within a month, the pressure in my head, my leg pain, and back pain were all gone.

Although, in my current condition, the blood clot had come out, the flesh on the lingual side of my left cheek continued to fester and my mouth became swollen again. My youngest sister, who was working out of town, came back. She was a doctor. As soon as she saw that I was so thin, and only weighing 70 to 80 pounds, she cried and asked me to go to the hospital. She also called another younger sister and told her about my situation. They had been worried that I might have diabetes, and asked me several times to have an examination. This time I was forced by my family to have an examination. The examination results showed four "+" signs. I looked at the results and said, "This illusion cannot fool me." My youngest sister said, "Not to mention your festered flesh, a small cut would have difficulty healing with diabetes." Afterwards, they cried and tried to make me go to the hospital. I told them that I would not go no matter what they said, and I started sending forth righteous thoughts. They soon calmed down.

Two days later, although the flesh on the lingual side of my left cheek was still festering, new flesh had started growing. In eight days, the festered area was all healed, and it looked like nothing had happened! From the beginning to the end of my ordeal, it took 44 days before I healed and could go to the field to work again. Now I can work in the field and my physical condition is better than before. Everyone saw me and heard about my situation; they all thought that Falun Gong was miraculous.

Although I recovered quickly, I asked myself why, at this critical time of saving lives, did I experience such a big tribulation? I looked back on the path of my cultivation over the past 11 years; I have had attachments, and the mentality of validating myself. Every time I did something well, my show-off mentality and zealotry would surface like a shadow, and I had not been able to completely eliminate them.

January 10, 2008