In mid to late April 2023, as the epidemic was subsiding and air travel restrictions were easing, I received distressing news: my 87-year-old father had fallen critically ill. With urgency gripping my heart, I swiftly purchased a ticket for a flight departing in just four hours. Amidst the rush to the airport, I felt a heavy weight of worry weighing me down. En route, I reached out to the church members, urging them to join me in prayer for my father's recovery, and I kept myself in prayer.
Although the epidemic lingered longer than anticipated, during this time I was able to think that I had begun a real prayer life, and I began to pray consistently for the faith of my parents and family, hoping that one day they too would be baptized into the name of Christ. In prayer I knew that was not an easy wish to fulfill. My father's fall made that hope seem even more remote and hopeless. I prayed to God that my father would get through this, and how I wished he could be baptized.
Gratefully, my father's surgery proved successful. During his recovery, I seized the opportunity to share with my parents the myriad blessings I had experienced through God's grace in recent years. I emphasized the significance of baptism, gently reintroducing the idea to my father in our conversations.
Had taken my parents to church before the epidemic and they liked it, but my father was less willing to be baptized, and although my father had read the Bible, he still had questions in his mind. I was unable to meet with my parents for several years during the epidemic, and it wasn't very easy to talk on the phone, so I basically couldn't do much except pray for them. My father was now unable to walk because of a disease in his lumbar spine, and baptism was even more difficult for him, but it was also more urgent, so I had to mention baptism to my father again, thanking God! I didn't expect my father to agree very readily this time. The pain in my father's lumbar spine not only prevented him from walking, but also from sitting for long periods of time, and the dosage of painkillers was at its limit, but the duration of pain relief was getting shorter and shorter. The location of the baptism was a two-hour drive, and there were more than ten steps down to the water, which made the baptism much more difficult. Thanks to God's mercy and the love of the co-workers in the Beijing church, after communicating with my parents about their basic beliefs, the church held a special baptism for my parents, with several members carrying my father when he went down to the water. After the baptism, it was two people who helped my father to walk up from the steps, even though the miracle lasted for only a dozen or so steps, it was enough to feel God's power.
After the baptism, I continued to seek the possibility of being able to operate on my father's lumbar spine, which is another hard-to-fulfill wish in my ongoing prayers - that a doctor would be willing to operate on my father's lumbar spine. The family has been trying for several years to realize the possibility of this surgery, and the answer is the same: too old, too risky for surgery, recommended conservative treatment, controlled by medication. Right now my father is recovering from femur surgery and the likelihood of surgery is slim to none. After consulting with various hospitals and departments, learning about successful and unsuccessful cases, and walking alternately in hope and disappointment, I finally succeeded in having this extremely risky surgery more than four months after my father's femoral head surgery. Before the surgery, in addition to praying, I also asked for intercession from the church members in order to alleviate the tremendous pressure on my heart. Thank God! The surgery only took just over two hours, and looking at my father's big smile after the surgery, I knew it was God's mercy and grace once again. Recovery from surgery was difficult, but it was a hopeful endeavor, and five months later he was able to walk up a few laps with the help of a walker. However, I didn't realize that another huge illness would strike my father down. Pemphigus - a disease of the immune system that is very difficult to cure - tortured my father to the point that he was in excruciating pain in just a little over a month. My father was once again admitted to the ICU, and I changed my plane ticket once again.
Sitting on the airplane, I seemed to be going through the same ordeal I had 11 months ago all over again. I sought God's mercy and help again in prayer, but there was a fundamental difference from 11 months ago because I was living in hope. As we look back on the 11 months we have just gone through, a period that seemed to be mostly taken up by sickness, disappointment, sorrow, and torment, we walked through it by prayer, intercession, and by God's mercy and grace. As Romans 8:28 says, We know that all things work together for good to those who love God. All things here are not only good, health, and peace, but also sickness, adversity, disappointment, and other kinds of experiences that cause us pain, and they are intertwined, but what remains constant is our dependence on God. In our prayers, in our intercession, in our endeavors, let these sufferings become a treasure for us to know God, to draw near to Him, to thank Him, and to glorify Him.
I don't know what kind of situation my father will face next, but one thing I can confirm is that no matter what, he is in the light and in hope because he already belongs to God!
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