(Minghui.org) As my husband and I sat and watched our daughter listlessly lie in a hospital bed, he suddenly blurted out, “Life is such an ordeal. Who can really cultivate to high levels?”
Our daughter was diagnosed with a rare disease, which completely crushed my husband’s hopes for her. She suffered from extreme muscle weakness. It quickly started to change her appearance and affect her basic body functions. She had droopy eyelids, difficulty moving the tip of her tongue, and could only eat liquid foods. She needed help with basic things, such as moving just a few steps from her bed to the table.
The doctor said that it would take at least two years for her condition to improve, if at all. Even then, she may never recover completely and would likely have some level of muscle weakness. In another words, she’d never be the same again.
My husband had been losing sleep and had lost almost 15 lbs in just a few days. Our daughter is the apple of her father’s eye. Up until this point, every aspect of her life was highly engineered by my husband and has gone according to his plan.
As my husband had wished, our daughter passed the exams to secure a much coveted position as a government employee. She found a nice young man who met all the requirements my husband had set for his future son-in-law. When they got married, less than two years ago, my husband paid for a spacious apartment in the city and gave it to them as a wedding gift. Everything seemed to be going perfect for her.
However, as the saying goes, “As the weather is unpredictable, so is a person’s fate.” Now that our daughter was sick, a deep sadness loomed over the family. My husband worried that our daughter’s illness would affect her marriage.
My husband had to go back home after a few days due to work, so I stayed to help take care her. As a Dafa cultivator of more than 20 years, I tried my best to not let it affect me. I knew that only Master and Dafa could save our daughter.
I told our daughter that when she was a little girl, I became very sick with a persistent low-grade fever. I had shortness of breath and severe pain all over my body. I was so weak that I couldn’t talk or do any household chores.
I sought out doctors of both Chinese and Western medicine, and even saw a witch doctor but nothing helped. When my aunt heard of my being ill, she told me to look for Falun Dafa practitioners in my area. Having experienced Dafa’s extraordinary powers first hand, she said she was confident that Dafa could help me.
I told my daughter that I would never forget the date March 28, 1998, the day I began to learn the exercises when my husband took me to a practice site. In the following months, he dropped me off at 6 p.m. and picked me up at 8 p.m. every night.
I studied the Fa and did the exercises with practitioners every day. To put Dafa’s principles into practice, I strove to be honest, kind, and patient in my everyday life. I no longer fought with others when we were facing a conflict, and treated my in-laws well. I got rid of my illnesses and regained my health. My husband was so happy to see smiles on my face again.
After picking me up at the practice site one day, my husband told me, “The central government will turn against this practice soon.”
My immediate response was, “Dafa healed my illness. Whether the government is for or against the practice has nothing to do with me.” My husband might have learned through his work that something bad was going to happen, but he couldn’t reveal everything to me at that time.
Sure enough, the peaceful times didn’t last long. On July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin, former leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ordered the practice be “eradicated.” All state-run media were utilized to spread propaganda slandering Falun Dafa. Thus, the brutal crackdown began.
When I saw the large-scale arrests of innocent practitioners and the fabricated lies and smear campaigns aired on TV, I changed my mind—I no longer thought it had nothing to do with me. I regained my health thanks to Dafa. Now Master and Dafa are being slandered. I had to go to Beijing to petition the central government, tell my story, and clear my Master’s name.
I was arrested and detained in Beijing. My husband used his connections and went through much trouble to get me released. However, his attitude toward Dafa changed and he was no longer supportive of me practicing Dafa.
However, it was not just him, the entire family was against Dafa because most of our relatives worked for the local government or government agencies. They were afraid of being implicated, and didn’t want anything to impact their careers.
To avoid conflicts within family, I read Zhuan Falun and other Dafa books only when I was alone for the next 10 years. My husband didn’t allow me to study the Fa or do the exercises. He tried everything he could to stop me from practicing Falun Dafa. He even tried to divorce me.
Master said,
“In the course of practice, we require the following of everyone: Even though you practice and your spouse might not, it is not permitted for you to get a divorce because of the practice.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
I didn’t sign the divorce papers, which prompted my husband to file a civil case against me, hoping the court would grant him a divorce. When the mediators visited me, I told them the benefits of practicing Dafa, also called Falun Gong, how I had improved mentally and physically, and how I took care of my in-laws who had lived with us for over 30 years. As a result, the case was dismissed.
After his failed attempt to divorce me, my husband became violent and abusive. He beat me in front of our daughter when she visited during the summer break. She didn’t try to stop him, but instead said to me, “It’s all because you practice Falun Gong.”
When my husband beat me, my mother-in-law also turned a blind eye, and said that she couldn’t do anything about it. I felt hurt by their indifference, but I was not resentful. Deceived by the CCP’s lies, they were the true victims.
I held on to one thought: I am going to practice Falun Dafa and nobody can change me. I want to go back to my origin — my true home with Master.
My family’s reactions, or lack of, helped me understand that people’s sentimentality is not reliable. I could only count on elevating my xinxing by cultivating according to Dafa and Master’s requirements.
I didn’t let my family’s attitude affect me. I talked to my husband as if nothing happened immediately after he cursed or beat me. I helped my in-laws with their cooking and chores even when they turned a blind eye to the violence. I held myself to high standards and tried to be kind to my family regardless. Gradually, I dissolved their anger with the compassion I had cultivated in Dafa.
Little by little, my actions changed my family’s attitude toward me and toward Dafa. If I didn’t cultivate in Dafa, I would have left my husband long ago. “And when you need me like you do now, I wouldn’t be here,” I told my daughter.
I continued, “The reason why I told you all this is to let you know that Falun Dafa is the Buddha Fa. As long as you really believe that Dafa is good, and sincerely recite, ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,’ miracles will happen and you will recover.”
My daughter listened the entire time without saying anything.
During the two months my daughter was hospitalized, I stayed by her side. Besides my own cultivation story, I also told her about other practitioners’ cultivation experiences, and stories of traditional culture.
An experienced doctor of Chinese Medicine said that my daughter suffered from myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease that leads to skeletal muscle weakness, and the chance of developing this sickness is one in 200,000.
The doctor prescribed medication to help my daughter control her muscles. It took two hours for it to kick in—she was then able to lift her eyelids, which was a big improvement.
On morning, she told me one morning that she didn’t take the pill that day and found she couldn’t move her eyes. She quietly recited, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
After just a few times of reciting the words, she was able to move her eyes again. Since then, she stopped taking the pills and only continued with the acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine.
While eating, my daughter suddenly started crying. “I can see the food I’m eating now.” She was overjoyed. This was after she stopped taking the pills. Even the doctor was amazed and commented that no patients with this rare disease had seen improvement so quickly.
My daughter was discharged from the hospital two months later. She was still weak and couldn’t hold anything. I stayed in her home and cared for her. Making the daily dose of Chinese herbal medicine was in itself a chore—it needed to simmer for three hours. I bathed her, washed her hair, as well as cooked, and cleaned the house during the day. It was difficult to keep up with my Fa study and exercises.
My daughter sometimes couldn’t sleep at night, so she came and sat with me in my room, saying that it made her feel better. She asked me, “Is it because your energy field is good?”
I told her that all Dafa practitioners have an energy field that benefits people around them. One day she said to me, “When I struggle to sleep at night, I only fall asleep when I recite ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.’”
I recommended that she read the book Zhuan Falun, but she wanted me to read it to her. So each day, regardless of how busy I was, I made the time to read one lecture to her.
Gradually, my daughter’s attitude toward Dafa changed. She said, “The message in this book is really good. It’s nothing like what the media says. But I’m afraid to stop taking the medicine.”
I told her, “If you’re not sure and worry that you won’t get better without the medicine, then just take it. The book doesn’t say that you can’t take medicine.”
She seemed relieved at my response. I continued, “When you grow confident that you will get better without taking the medicine, then you can stop. Whether you take it or not is your choice. It takes time to gain confidence and faith in Dafa. I’ve been through the same process. Now, if I have pain or I’m not feeling well, I just do the exercises and it usually goes away quickly so I never had the need to take anything. This is how it’s been for me.”
As we kept up with our daily Fa study, my daughter’s health was much improving. Three months later, she was well enough to return to work, albeit just for a short time each day. Her supervisor gave her an hour’s worth of work each day and her co-workers were very kind to share the rest of the workload.
My son-in-law or I still needed to drop her off and pick her up as she couldn’t even carry a small purse, let alone her laptop. Sometimes we walked to work as I held and supported her. Even then, what used to take 15 minutes took us twice the amount of time.
It was a miracle for someone with such severe muscle weakness to even begin to recover in such a short time—my daughter knew it was all because of Dafa. However, she had concerns, “I don’t want to cultivate. I still want to be an ordinary person and have an ordinary life.”
I told her, “It takes time to know what Dafa really is and to become a cultivator. It’s a process. Even after so many years of cultivation, I still live among ordinary people, don’t I? Take it slowly and just focus on studying the Fa every day.”
Without actively trying to cultivate, however, my daughter’s xinxing improved. My son-in-law lost his temper over something trivial one time and stormed off. I told my daughter, “It is all predestined relationship. Maybe in previous life, we treated him unfairly. It will be over as soon as we repay the debt we owe him.”
My daughter smiled, “Mom, I’m not upset.” When I asked her to call her husband after a while, instead she called him immediately, “It’s so cold out there. Please come home.” My son-in-law soon came back and acted as if nothing had happened. If it were before, something like this would have upset my daughter for days.
She cried as soon as she woke up one morning. When I asked her what happened, she said that when she went to sleep that night, as before, she always wished that “It would be great to wake up and find all my illnesses gone.” But when she opened her eyes, she was disappointed to find that she was still sick.
Before I could respond, she said, “Why don’t I listen to Master like I should?”
My daughter always referred to Master as “your Master” or “your Teacher.” This was the first time she referred to Master as if she was a Dafa practitioner.
She also got rid of her vanity through studying the Fa. When I picked her up after work one time, she confessed, “Mom, when you came to pick me up, two of my co-workers turned around and looked at you. Before, I would have cared so much about how you dressed, as I’d have felt much better if you wore something nice. But today I didn’t care at all.”
My daughter works for the city government and needs to dress up for work every day. I was wearing a coat, scarf, and an old pair of shoes. I didn’t pack very many clothes when my husband and I left home and rushed to the hospital a few months ago and I hadn’t been back home since then.
My daughter sat on the couch, watching me working in the kitchen, and said, “Mom. You have worked so hard to help me. It’s keeping you busy every day looking after me. What if you get sick too because of me?”
I smiled, and replied, “I am a Dafa practitioner. Don’t worry about me.”
She said, “I am now much more appreciative and considerate of others.” I was so happy to hear that.
I read a lecture of Zhuan Falun to my daughter every day. She had also listened to Master’s audio tapes three times, memorized “What’s to Fear?” from Master’s poem in Hong Yin II,and learned the fist set of exercises.
Five months later, she was able to go to work and come home all by herself. Her miraculous recovery from such a rare disease could not be explained by modern science. Thank you Master for compassionately saving my daughter.
During the time I stayed with her, my husband was not able to travel outside of our province to visit due to Covid restrictions. When I asked him to send me my laptop so I could study the Fa and do the exercises, he sent it immediately. When I asked him to buy fresh fruit and offer it to Master’s portrait, he said, “You don’t need to remind me of that. I know what to do.”