寻根之旅 （接上文）
- 在大姑家的那一晚
晚上七点多，我和乔治、春雨来到大姑家。终于见到了近30年未见的大姑，心中无限感恩——大姑信主已经很多年了。她的信主见证如下：
“那年正好我退休。当时，我身体和心灵里有一种说不出来的不舒服，心里慌张着急，无论在哪里都坐立不安。有一个姊妹对我说：‘你信主吧。’我就跟她一起在她家里祷告，但祷告不下去。她又劝我跟她一起去教会，我就跟她去了。
到了教会我做祷告时，好像有一个人把朝廷穿的大袍子给我披上，我烦躁的心情一下子就平静下来。我全好了，整个人像是红色的东西被清水洗过一样，那么清洁、那么干净。从此，我一点也不着急、坐车也不晕车了。
有一次我坐在工厂的班车上，心里想着可能会晕车，就祷告说：‘主啊，求你医治我，叫我不要晕车了。’神马上就医治我了，我心里也不想呕吐了，也不晕车了，神的恩典一下子就临到我了。
我心里赞叹说：神真好！这个世界上怎么能有那么好的事呢？于是我把这些事情都传给周围的姐妹听。神借着我带领好些姐妹信了耶稣，她们中有人有工作，有人没有工作。当时你姑父退休了，他出去玩儿，我就把这些姐妹召集在家聚会，厂里信主的人也越来越多。
到教会以后，我认识了老牧师。老牧师特别关照我，叫我学习圣经。后来我又上了南京神学院的函授班，三年学习，拿了毕业证。
我年轻时骑自行车摔伤，眼睛缝了三十多针；那次事故还伤到了头，从此头不由自主地一直摇动。我想想这样的病也治不好，我也没跟神说过，但神真是超过人所求所想的。有一天，一位姐妹忽然对我说：‘李姐，你的头怎么不摇了？’我回家照镜子一看，真的好了。现在我的孩子也说：‘妈，你头不摇了。’我这才意识到，原来在不知不觉中，主已经医治了我。神医治人不能医治的病，解决人不能解决的难题，超过人的所求所想。
我今年85岁，腰不疼、腿不酸。从信主那天直到现在，我一直服侍上帝，为上帝做工。主要我活着，我就服侍主！我最大的愿望就是我的家人也能信主；如果他们不信主，我死不瞑目。”
信徒一家亲。神的仆人无论走到哪里，见到弟兄姐妹，就如同见到家人一般。那天晚上，大姑急切地召集了五位姐妹和一位弟兄前来交通。我们一直交通到晚上十点多，并逐一为弟兄姐妹按手祷告。祷告结束后，弟兄姐妹才依依不舍地散去。
期间，我尝试开口向大姑父传福音，但他对福音非常抵触，情绪激动地说：“要信你们信，我不信！”他心中对福音最大的拦阻，是大表哥英年早逝所带来的巨大伤痛。当年大姑初信主，对信仰认识尚浅，加之在一些事情上处理欠妥，使姑父心里的纠结久久不能解开。在他看来，信主应当是“保平安”的，可为什么会经历如此沉重的丧子之痛呢？他无法理解：主从未应许天色常蓝、人生道路花香常漫；主所应许的，是在艰难中赐下力量，在黑暗中赐下亮光，在劳苦中赐下安息。
夜里躺在床上，辗转难眠，许多往事历历在目。当年，在河南出生的姑姑和父亲姐弟两人去了两个完全不同的方向。姑姑随姑父去了中国的大西北青海，父亲则去了中国的大东北黑龙江。小时候家里穷，大姑常从青海寄来表哥表姐的衣服，给我们姐弟三人穿。尽管天各一方，但两家却常在相近的时间经历不幸。我七八岁、刚开始记事的时候，姑姑在青海骑自行车遭遇车祸；几乎同时，父亲在黑龙江抬木头时被砸伤，从此头痛一直伴随着他。他晚上睡觉时常说：“有邪灵在我头里，我需要信耶稣。”
同一年，大表哥不幸去世，我哥哥的前三根手指也被雷管炸伤。这一连串发生在家族中的苦难，使我在多年后回望时，愈发清楚地感受到，其中似乎不仅仅是偶然，更隐约显出一种属灵层面的争战。哥哥十七岁回到老家的老宅时，有位算命先生说：“这家风水不好，几代单传。”哥哥回应说：“我家有我和弟弟两个男孩。”算命的却说：“恐怕其中一个保不住。”哥哥随即说：“我家信耶稣了。”那人立刻说：“那我不说了（言外之意是，算命先生觉得一旦人信了耶稣，他算命的技巧对那人也就失灵了）。”的确，耶稣能改变命运。否则，照算命的说法，我在十五岁那年心脏病复发就该离开世界了；然而，基督改变了这一切。因为在亚当里，我们活在魔鬼的权势之下，并受到罪恶的咒诅；但在基督里，借着耶稣和他的十字架，我们便得了释放与自由（弗2:2,13）。
那一夜，我睡在大姑家中。奇怪的是，就在刚刚入睡的时，我清楚地感到周围仿佛有黑暗势力的笼罩。我跪下来祈祷，求主的宝血洁净这地方，断开一切捆绑与锁链。随着祷告，黑暗退去，平安临到。我整夜安睡，毫无搅扰。（未完待续）
A Journey of Seeking Root
(Continued)
That Evening at My Aunt’s Home
Around seven o’clock in the evening, George, Chunyu, and I arrived at my aunt’s home. At last, after nearly thirty years, I was reunited with my aunt. My heart was filled with deep gratitude—for she has been a believer for many years. The following is her testimony of coming to faith:
“That year, I had just retired. At the time, there was an indescribable discomfort in both my body and my soul. My heart was anxious and restless; no matter where I was, I could not settle down. A sister said to me, ‘You should believe in the Lord.’ I prayed with her at her home, but I could not pray through. She then encouraged me to go to church with her, and so I went.
When I prayed at the church, it was as if someone placed upon me a long ceremonial robe worn in the imperial court. My agitated heart immediately became calm. I was completely healed—my whole being felt as though something red had been washed clean by clear water, so pure and so spotless. From that time on, I was no longer anxious, nor did I get motion sickness when riding in vehicles.
Once, while riding on the factory shuttle bus, I thought to myself that I might get motion sickness. I prayed, ‘Lord, please heal me so that I will not feel dizzy.’ God healed me immediately. I no longer felt nauseous or dizzy; God’s grace came upon me all at once.
In my heart I exclaimed, ‘God is so good! How can there be something so wonderful in this world?’ So I shared these experiences with the sisters around me. God used me to lead many sisters to believe in Jesus—some of them had jobs, and some did not. At that time, your uncle had retired and often went out to travel, so I gathered these sisters to meet in our home. More and more people in the factory also came to believe in the Lord.
After going to church, I came to know an elderly pastor. He took special care of me and encouraged me to study the Bible. Later, I enrolled in the correspondence program at Nanjing Theological Seminary. After three years of study, I received my graduation certificate.
When I was young, I fell off my bicycle and injured myself; my eyes required more than thirty stitches. That accident also injured my head, and from then on my head would shake uncontrollably. I thought that such an illness could not be healed, and I never even asked God about it. But God truly exceeds what people ask or imagine. One day, a sister suddenly said to me, ‘Sister Li, why is your head no longer shaking?’ I went home and looked in the mirror—it really was healed. Now even my children say, ‘Mom, your head doesn’t shake anymore.’ Only then did I realize that, without my even being aware of it, the Lord had already healed me. God heals diseases that people cannot heal and resolves problems that people cannot solve, far beyond what we ask or think.
I am now eighty-five years old. My waist does not ache, and my legs are not sore. From the day I believed in the Lord until now, I have continually served God and labored for Him. As long as the Lord allows me to live, I will serve Him! My greatest desire is that my family members would also believe in the Lord; if they do not believe, I will not be able to die in peace.”
Believers are one family. Wherever God’s servants go, when they meet brothers and sisters in Christ, it is as though they are meeting family members. That evening, my aunt eagerly gathered five sisters and one brother to come together for fellowship. We continued fellowshipping until after ten o’clock at night, and we prayed for each brother and sister individually with the laying on of hands. Only after the prayers ended did the brothers and sisters reluctantly depart.
During this time, I attempted to share the gospel with my uncle, but he was strongly resistant and emotionally agitated. He said, “If you want to believe, then you believe. I won’t!” The greatest stumbling block in his heart toward the gospel was the immense pain caused by the untimely death of my eldest cousin. When my aunt had just come to faith, her understanding of the faith was still shallow, and coupled with some mishandling of certain matters, the knot in my uncle’s heart remained unresolved for a long time. In his view, believing in the Lord should be about “keeping safe and secure,” so why, then, did such overwhelming pain—the loss of a child—occur? He could not understand that the Lord never promised that the skies would always be blue or that life’s path would always be strewn with flowers; rather, the Lord promised to give strength in hardship, light in darkness, and rest in toil.
That night, as I lay in bed, I tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep, with many memories vividly returning to mind. In those earlier years, my aunt and my father—siblings born in Henan—went in two completely different directions. My aunt followed my uncle to Qinghai in northwest China, while my father went to Heilongjiang in northeast China. When we were young and our family was poor, my aunt often sent clothes from Qinghai that my cousins had worn, for the three of us siblings to wear. Though separated by vast distances, the two families experienced misfortunes around the same periods of time. When I was seven or eight years old, just beginning to remember things, my aunt had a bicycle accident in Qinghai; almost at the same time, my father was injured in Heilongjiang when he was struck while carrying logs, and from then on he suffered from chronic headaches. At night, he would often say, “There is an evil spirit in my head; I need to believe in Jesus.”
That same year, my eldest cousin passed away tragically, and my older brother lost the first three fingers of his hand in an accident involving detonators. This series of sufferings within our family, when I look back years later, makes me increasingly aware that there seemed to be more than mere coincidence—there was also a faint sense of spiritual warfare beneath the surface. When my brother was seventeen and returned to our ancestral home, a fortune-teller said, “This family’s Feng Shui is bad; for generations it has been a single line of descent.” My brother replied, “Our family has two sons—my brother and me.” The fortune-teller then said, “I’m afraid one of them won’t survive.” My brother immediately responded, “Our family believes in Jesus.” At once the man said, “Then I won’t say any more,” implying that once a person believes in Jesus, his fortune-telling skills no longer work on that person. Indeed, Jesus can change one’s destiny. Otherwise, according to the fortune-teller, I should have died when my heart disease relapsed at the age of fifteen. Yet Christ changed all of this. For in Adam, we live under the power of the devil and under the curse of sin; but in Christ, through Jesus and His cross, we have obtained deliverance and freedom (Ephesians 2:2, 13).
That night, I slept in my aunt’s home. Strangely, just as I was falling asleep, I distinctly sensed that there seemed to be a shroud of dark forces surrounding me. I knelt down to pray, asking the Lord’s precious blood to cleanse the place and to break every bond and chain. As I prayed, the spiritual darkness retreated and peace came. I slept soundly through the night, without any disturbance. (to be continued)