7.  Whoever Gains the Lord Gains All 

Sister Ren had been an acquaintance of ours in Guangzhou.  In some ways, she was different from the ordinary person.  Just as she turned forty, her husband was permitted to leave for Hong Kong.  When she learned of this she joyfully clapped her hands and told us:  ”From now on, I am free.  I can study the Bible with you every day!”  Actually, she and her husband were affectionate with each other.  Later, when we moved to Shanghai, she also went there and lived in her mother’s house.  She always came to pray and study the Bible with us.  Her mother’s family was very rich and they hid all of their wealth and treasures in their chests and wardrobes.  However, her mother’s house was searched and confiscated by the communists. Again she clapped her hands with thanksgiving: ”Now my parents, brothers and sisters will turn their hearts to the true God.”  Sister Ren’s appearance was plain, but she had a fair complexion.  Her husband was big, tall, good-looking and talented.  He owned a big enterprise in Hong Kong and the two of them had been separated for a long time.  All of her relatives were talking about her and wondered why she did not worry or why she did not apply to go to Hong Kong to reunite with her husband as soon as possible.  They worried that her husband might have an affair, or even have children outside his marriage.  She herself had never borne any children and would soon be beyond the child-bearing age.  She simply replied:   "I had applied to go, but I was rejected by the government.  What is the use of worrying?  Will my worry stop him from having an affair?

Later the police station cancelled her household registration in Guangzhou because she always stayed in Shanghai.  If this had happened to someone else, they would have worried to death.  In China, if you do not have a household registration, you cannot receive any provision for food, rice, cooking oil, salt, cloth, etc.  However, she was not worried at all.  Her husband always mailed her draft from Hong Kong, but she could not receive the money.  Finally she went to the police station and asked:  “Shall I return these drafts to Hong Kong, since I do not have a household registration?  The Chinese government was in need of foreign exchange at that time, so the police station just restored her household registration as soon as they could.

After twenty years’ separation, sister Ren finally joined her husband in Hong Kong.  When I arrived, she had been there for awhile.  She wanted to visit me at Mrs. Chu’s house, but she did not know how to get there by bus.  Wherever she went, her husband always provided a car.  Once we had a fellowship meeting at Mrs. Chu’s house and she called her husband to let him know that she would have dinner there.  Before long her husband called to ask whether she was warm enough, and if he should bring her some clothes.  In a little while he called again saying that he was giving a banquet  and the dishes were so good he would like to pick her up to share the delicacies.  All the sisters at the fellowship clicked their tongues in admiration at how fortunate Sister Ren was to have such a loving and caring husband.  She answered, “No husband can be compared with our beloved Jesus in heaven.”   She was truly blessed that she loved the Lord more than anything.  I had been to her husband’s office.  There were many female clerks who were as beautiful as flowers.  Sister Ren told me that once a woman attempted to seduce her husband with these words:  “Your wife is in Mainland China, let me keep you company."  Her husband realized that this woman came to put a yoke on him.  If he took one wrong step, he would submit to her yoke and the consequences would be too dreadful to contemplate.  It was the Lord that kept her husband from falling into sin.  When the two returned to Mainland China to visit relatives, sister Ren was told:  “You do not need to preach Jesus to us any more.  We have all believed in Jesus because we see how your husband has been devoted to you.”  It was this same sister, Ren, who always wore a smile on her face and gave thanks on all occasions, who asked her husband to be my financial sponsor when I had a chance to visit my relatives in America.  Blessed be this sister who loves the Lord with a pure heart.