Li Juan "Mother's Faith"

When no one was around, my mother suddenly whispered to me, "What should I do?" Now everyone knows that I believe in Christianity, and it spreads everywhere, but I obviously don't believe it, I really can't believe it...... What to do?

My uncle is to blame for this. His family's kinship is intricately intertwined, complicated, and complicated. Counting up, almost half of the Henan people in the county have a relationship with him. One of the four aunts believed in Christ, and as a result, half of the Henan people in the county followed suit. Ever since he got married to my mother, he has voted unanimously for my mother. So everyone came to persuade her, especially the fourth aunt, who persuaded her very sincerely, and she must take my mother to the church to see. My mom happened to be idle that day. I thought: What does a church look like? Out of curiosity, I followed.

As a result, it was forced to become some kind of formal fact. The church people gave my mom a Bible and a hymn. My mom couldn't refuse, so she accepted it—and this one must have accepted more than just two books. From then on, every time he went into the city to run errands, he hid like a thief, and if he accidentally met a relative, he would be dragged into the church. It stands to reason that freedom of belief should be beyond anyone's help. However, who taught too many relatives in the uncle's family! My mom couldn't beat everyone with one punch. In addition, the atmosphere of the church was too solemn, and everyone was so pious and solemn, my mother was so frightened that she didn't dare to talk nonsense when she went in. Others let her do whatever she wanted, and she didn't dare to take a breath until she could go out.

My mother said, "I don't like listening to the Bible, and I can't always say prayer, but singing (hymns) is pretty good." I just like to sing along. "She learned a lot of songs in church, and she kept boasting that it was good, good, and so good. I hurriedly asked her to sing a song. She thought about it, but said, "Forget." I thought about it again: "Only when I get to church can I remember how to sing." ”

In the summer, she lived alone in a remote and uninhabited wilderness, guarding two hundred acres of sunflower fields. All day long, a person is trapped in the vast land, facing the loess, hoeing, splitting, watering, and quietly feeding the farm work. Sometimes, while doing it, I suddenly think of a certain hymn in my loneliness, so I work while singing. Vast wilderness, self-enjoyment.

"Sometimes I sing to the tigers, sometimes to the chickens and rabbits," she said. ”

- That time, the dog raced the tiger, the big dog Ugly, and the chickens and rabbits were all taken into the wilderness. She lived there for more than three months.

By the way, there was another time when she sang the most solemn and reverent. That time my uncle was sick in the county, and my mother wanted to see him. But that day, she waited on the side of the road early in the morning and didn't wait for the bus to come all morning. She decided to ride her motorcycle into town. But she was very scared - she had never ridden that far before, more than a hundred kilometers! Moreover, her motorcycle did not have a license, so she had to sneak through the trails in the wilderness. The road conditions are poor, the Gobi is vast, and it is easy to get lost. And she had only heard of that road, and had never walked it herself once (except for the Spring and Autumn sheep passing by, there were hardly any people or vehicles on that road). The most dangerous thing is that during that time, her motorcycle has been having some minor problems, and there is not too much gasoline in the fuel tank (there is no official gas station in Akhara, and it is all private selling gasoline, and the fuel is often cut off)...... In short, if you throw a depiction in the wilderness, it will be miserable, and there will be absolutely no one to turn to. It's spring again, and the wind and sand are so big...... But she still took a huge risk and hit the road.

In the howling wind, she suddenly remembered a hymn for the occasion, and sang loudly along the way: "The Lord of Thousands of Mountains and Rivers accompanies ......" and the other sentence is: "When you are lost, the Lord is by your side......" to talk about courage.

I asked, "What happened later?" Are you okay along the way? She said, "It's fine." And he said, "I really got lost once." ”

As for my uncle, he has a longer history of being religious. When my mother married him, she learned that she was married to a Christian, and she was very cautious for a while, for fear that if she said something wrong carelessly, she would hurt people's religious pride. After a long time, I was greatly relieved - this disciple is too inauthentic!

She said, "Humph! As soon as I entered the church, I dozed off. Until the steward (presumably the pastor) finished speaking a passage and asked aloud, 'Who among you wants to go to heaven?' Then he woke up and shouted: 'Me! ’”

Ever since my mom had also joined the church, the two of them had been going to church together and dozing off together. Not only did my mom doze off, but she drooled prolonged.

My mother lives in the country, so at most she is wary of her relatives when she goes into the city. And the situation of my uncle was much worse, who taught him to live in the city most of the time. As soon as Sunday arrived, I hurried out and didn't dare to stay at home. But it's still dangerous to go out, no matter how carefully you pull aside, you will be stopped from afar: "Third brother! Walk! Pray to go! "- Who called him a relative so much!

He said, "Well, the vegetable patch in the yard hasn't been watered yet." ”

The relative said, "Third brother, believe in the Lord!" ”

So my uncle had to go along. When I came back from praying, I called my mother: "The ground is still dry, and the Lord didn't help me pour it." ”

My uncle sometimes firmly refused. Relatives will be very angry: "Third brother! Forget? How sick I was last time, if it weren't for the grace of the Lord! Third brother, believe in the Lord! ”

My mother whispered: "Hmph, it's obviously Lao Tzu's grace." That time, Lao Tzu served him for two whole weeks! ”

When it came to religion, my mother complained a lot. "I believe that Jesus was a good man and that the Bible is right." I want to do what the teacher (presumably the pastor) said! But Lao Tzu really looked down on those religious believers. - Hmph, that's a shame! Listen to what they prayed for—Lord, give me a house, Lord, find my son a job...... Open your mouth and close your mouth to find the main thing for this and that, it's really unusual! What a hard job! It's a shame to follow this group of people to believe it, it's really inauthentic! ”

And said, "Juan'er, don't look at you as writing articles, if you listen to their prayers, you will be shocked!" Oh my God, there are so many words! I don't know how they came up with it. Tsk, one after another, and don't knock for half an hour...... They saw that I couldn't pray, and they gave me a copy of the Prayer Statement, which had everything on it. I memorized it whenever I had time, but after half a year of memorization, I couldn't memorize the first one...... I had already memorized it, but when I entered the church, I forgot about it...... I will only say repeatedly: Lord, bless me Juan'er well outside, Lord, bless me well. ”

Although the Bible was used to heat the soup bowl from time to time at home, hymns and prayers were thrown around, as if they had been fried in a pan of oil. But my mom still had a great respect for Christianity. Whether it is a true belief or a false letter, the things on the face are done strictly and tightly, and they will never be exposed. Only when no one was there would he discuss religious issues with me in confusion: "Juan'er, there is one thing I can't figure out even if I die. The Bible says that God created the world in seven days. He also made people, and animals and plants are also his credit - that's not what our teachers said when we were in school! ”

There was one more thing she couldn't figure out. After buying eggplants at the vegetable market, the stall owner gave a handful of coriander, and the church people took it and quickly said, "Thank you, Lord." She thought: I should thank the vegetable stall owner, right?

As for the names between believers: Sister Song, Brother Chen, etc., my mother is not used to it. I feel disgusting, and I can't scream at suffocation. I had to call brother and sister vaguely. She said: "Men are generally older than me anyway, and women are generally younger than me. ”

In any case, throwing someone like my mother into a group of serious people is somewhat beneficial. The most noticeable change is that the swearing is less dirty. used to blurt out "your aunt's legs, your second egg" and the like, although it was barbaric and interesting, but after all, it was not a system. Now, when you get angry, you just repeat: "You devil! You're going to hell! "It's a lot more elegant.

In addition, her religious beliefs have greatly improved her interpersonal relationships. No matter how much she hid it, the news of her conversion to the church later spread from Henan relatives in the city to Henan relatives in the countryside (half of the Henan people in the countryside are also relatives of my uncle...... ）。 Those neighboring villages who had quarreled with her and scolded her on the street (that was the only Han village in this area, and my family was in a Kazakh village, there were no Han people) all came to take the initiative to reconcile with her. The vegetable seller will always bring a handful of celery and a few potatoes to the door of the house. I had a little illness, and everyone came to deliver medicine and fruits. In short, after my mother became religious, she found out that there are so many people in the world who believe in religion! It turns out that my uncle has so many relatives!

She went to buy something and casually said, "Thank God." (Habit becomes nature...... Immediately, the seller was greatly moved: "So you are also our sister?" "My mom, uh-huh, I can't speak. Next, the things I bought were discounted by 20% without saying a word.

My uncle was also very resistant to going into church and reciting prayers, but his faith was real. It's just that like my mother, she also looks down on local monks. Always proudly said: "I am not with them, my organizational relationship is in Altay!" "Only foreign monks are good at chanting.

Many years ago, when he went to Altay on an errand, he had some trouble, and an old lady in the church enthusiastically helped him and introduced him to the church. Later, every time he went to Altay, he would visit the old lady. It is said that the old people are in their 70s because of their faith in the Lord, and they are in good health and have nothing to say, and they have no diseases. She also has a very good heart, and her family has a room of homeless people, no matter who goes to her, she is willing to take her in and help find a job. I heard that he also reformed several labor prisoners, who used to kill people and set fires, but now they are all like Lei Feng.

I lived in Altay for five years, and for a while happened to live near the old lady's house. Somehow, when she heard that I was working in the Propaganda Department, she became interested in me, and several times wanted to personally develop me into the religion and infiltrate the Lord's grace into the national cadres. Later, when he heard that I was twenty-seven or eighteen years old and unmarried, he took pity on me and asked to introduce me to a person in the church. I was so scared that I slipped along the wall as soon as I went out, but fortunately I never met her once.

But to be honest, I still really respect such an old man. Moreover, every Christmas, she will receive a Christmas present, which is brought by a neighbor, a bag of candy, or a soft-sided notebook with "Merry Christmas" written on it.

My mother said admiringly: "In the future, when I am old, I will be like the old lady Altay, decent, truly religious, and I will also help a room without food." "However, according to the current signs, I am afraid it is difficult to do. However, if you have the sincerity to say such a thing, you should have just gotten a little bit of the essence of "teaching".