What Allows Me to Regain a Happy Life?

Xiaoping

This is an age when people care very much about physical attractiveness and a good looking body. With a beautiful face and a slim figure, I turned heads no matter what kind of clothes I wore. People around me often praised me and envied that I had both a great figure and a great face, and my husband was also very kind to me. Because of this, I was especially confident. No matter where I went, I walked with my head held high and my back straight. I displayed myself to receive praise from others. In my heart I believed: As long as a woman has a graceful figure and a pretty face, she could rewrite her own life.

However, unexpectedly, after having a child, I began to put on weight. Gradually, my husband began to dislike me, and he said I had a chubby stomach and fat legs. Some people also joked sarcastically at me, saying that I even put on weight when I drank water, and that I was so fat that I was out of shape. Listening to these words, I felt especially awful. My face burned as if I was slapped. When I had used to go out, people praised my beauty, but now they all ridiculed me. It was as if I fell from heaven to hell. The drastic contrast seriously damaged my pride, and I felt so painful inside. One time, I went shopping with my husband, and I was buying trousers for him in a department store. Two shop assistants quietly whispered behind me, “This guy is so young and handsome. How is he with this big fat woman?” When I heard their critiques, I was so angry that I threw the pants onto the counter, and then turned and left. I couldn’t stop my tears from flowing. I thought: These days, people only value a good face and a nice figure. If a woman doesn’t have a beautiful face and a slim figure, then there’s no way for her to stand in society. So, I made up my mind: When I stop breastfeeding my child, I’ll try to lose weight. I’ll make those people who laughed at me envious and jealous! Later, a friend of mine said to me, “Look at how chubby you’ve become. So many men have a young mistress these days. If you keep getting fatter and don’t try to lose weight, what will you do if one day your husband becomes unfaithful and finds a mistress?” When I heard things like this, I became more miserable inside, and I felt a strong sense of danger. I thought: When my figure hadn’t changed, my husband obeyed everything I said. After I put on weight, my husband started to dislike me. If things go according to what my friend said, this would be awful. I can’t allow something like this to happen. I felt very anxious. In those days, even in my dreams I dreamed that my husband ran off with some other woman. This made me feel even more that losing weight is of utmost importance. After my child was weaned, I looked for effective short-term ways of losing weight through acquaintances and the Internet. I even consulted experts in weight loss, who said to me, “If you want a slim figure, you have to pay the price. A married woman like you especially needs to look after her weight. You’re still young. It’s too late if you want to lose weight when you’re older. Your figure is your confidence. Only when your figure is better can you grasp your husband’s heart.” The expert was right! Only when a woman has a perfect figure can she have total confidence and restore her image in others’ minds. So, I started to implement my own weight loss plans without hesitation, looking for “secret recipes” for losing weight.

One time, my younger sister said to me that her neighbor took some diet pills and lost around 15 kg in one month. I was really excited after hearing it, and I got my sister to look into it and buy a few boxes for me. My sister said, “Sis, every medicine has its side effect. It will surely do some impact to your body. You have to be careful.” When I heard this, I was a bit worried. I was afraid that maybe it really had some side effects that would damage my body. But then I thought: When my figure was good, my husband and people around me all praised me and were envious. However, after my figure became bad, all that I have encountered is sarcasm, jokes, and humiliation. There’s so much difference between the two. I’ll just throw caution to the winds. I don’t care about whether taking this medicine is dangerous to my body. As long as it could make me slimmer, nothing else is important. So, I started taking weight loss pills. Normally, I should have taken one pill a day, but I increased the dosage to achieve a faster result. Because of the stimulus from the pills, I could only sleep about two to three hours a night. My head felt bloated, my eyes hurt, and my heart began palpitating. I also stopped having proper meals every day, but only ate various fruits and vegetables which can lower fat like cucumbers, tomatoes, and watermelons. I only had some plain noodles twice a month. Since I lacked both nutrition and sleep, I became a bit dazed. But so that I could regain my original slim body after the diet, I felt that this wasn’t much pain to suffer through. Determination would lead to success. After some time, every day, I would try on a nice dress that my friend had given me. In the beginning, I could only pull it over my head, but after a month, I could finally put it on easily. I happily stood in the courtyard admiring myself, but suddenly I saw blackness and collapsed. Seeing this, my husband angrily said to me, “You’re really throwing away your life to be beautiful!” But I ignored his words. No matter what, I slimmed down now. I didn’t suffer in vain this past month. Later, I purposefully wore pretty dresses and went out into the streets. I wanted to let those people who had used to joke about my weight see my slim figure. When my neighbors saw me, sure enough, they were surprised, “Wow! How did you slim down so quickly? Your weight loss is really successful!” Once again, they gazed at me with envy and jealousy. At that time, my husband didn’t say sarcastic things as he did before, and his attitude toward me improved. He even smiled at me and said, “You really do look better when you’re thin!” Listening to these words, my vanity was satisfied once again. My desire to lose weight became even stronger. I got addicted as if I was on drugs, and I couldn’t even have stopped if I wanted to. I still thought that my figure wasn’t perfect enough, so I bought another box of weight loss pills. But I could never have thought that when I slimmed down to the figure I wanted, suffering would follow on.

One morning, when I woke up I found that there were many small red spots on my body, even on my scalp and in my ears. I immediately had my mother accompany me to the hospital for an examination. The doctor said I had psoriasis, a refractory skin disease. It couldn’t be totally cured, but could only be controlled as much as possible through medicine. The reason was because my immunity was lowered and I had no resistance, so that the toxin in my body was unable to be purged and remain in my bloodstream. I had never imagined that, while pursuing a slim figure, I would catch a skin disease that caused anyone who saw me to distance themselves. This price is too high. Later, I had very itchy reddish patches from head to toe. My husband despised me and kept his distance too. Additionally, I didn’t dare to go out and was afraid of being laughed at. I felt exceedingly painful inside, and cried every day. I had tried to lose weight to show off my body, but now, not only could I not show off, but I brought trouble upon myself. Other people could wear short tops and pants, but I had to wrap myself up tightly to hide the patches I had all over my body. I was so regretful, but things being what they were, there was no way to turn back. I could only look everywhere for doctors to cure my skin problems. However, all medicine could only control it for a time, but not cure the cause. What made me even more pained was that weight loss drug induces dependency—since I stopped taking weight loss pills because of my sickness, I quickly got fat again. The ridicule from people and cold-shoulder and dislike from my family made me feel very distressed, and I even had suicidal thoughts. I had always pursued a perfect figure and always wanted to change my own fate through losing weight, but, not only did I not lose weight, I even caught this disease and brought myself great damages. In particular, I saw that some people around me got insomnia, heart diseases or anorexia for losing weight, and some even got stomach cancer and paid for beauty with their lives. All this made me feel lost: What did I do this for? Is it just so that people would praise me? Is it really worth it to damage my body to this extent?

Later, I had the fortune to accept Almighty God’s work of the last days. In a gathering, I fellowshiped about my process of losing weight to the sisters, and one of them read me a passage of Almighty God’s words: “Your temperament, caliber, appearance, stature, family in which you were born, your job and your marriage, the entirety of you, even the color of your hair and your skin, and the time of your birth were all arranged by My hands. Even the things you do and the people you meet every single day are arranged by My hands, not to mention the fact that bringing you into My presence today is actually My arrangement. Do not throw yourself into disorder; you should proceed calmly” (The Word Appears in the Flesh). The sister fellowshiped, “Everything is predestined by God, including the kind of marriage and family we have, what appearance and skin color we have, when we are fat, and when we are thin. It is not something that anyone or anything could change. What God gives us is all the best, it is all meaningful, but we are not able to obey God’s sovereignty and predestination, and we always feel that everything God bestows is not to our will. We always want to pursue perfectness and oppose God’s sovereignty and change all that God has given us. That is why we have self-harmed and brought ourselves so much pain. Look at such and such in my working unit. In pursuit of beauty, she messed up her nerves when undergoing a lip line surgery and now she has a crooked mouth. Some other people, in order to lose weight, went to have liposuction and died on the spot. The reason these people have encountered such disasters is because they do not understand God’s authority and sovereignty. This is the bitter consequence of their vain attempt to change their fate by themselves.”

Through God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, I knew that the kind of marriage, family, appearance, and figure I have are all in God’s hand. God has already arranged it. It is not something that I can change when I want to. However, because I had no understanding of God’s sovereignty, I tried to change my own fate through losing weight. As a result, I spent a lot of money and suffered a lot of hardships, but in the end, not only did I not change my fate, I caught an obstinate skin disease and suffered from it every day…. I am truly too foolish and ignorant! Later, I partook in church life with brothers and sisters, singing hymns in praise of God, fellowshiping about God’s words, and sharing our own respective experiences and witnesses. In my association with them, I saw that those brothers and sisters dress very plainly. They do not pursue physical attractiveness or a good figure. They accept and submit to whatever God has given to them, and they live relaxed and carefree. They help and support each other and treat everyone fairly. They do not deal with somebody differently because of differences in their appearance and figure. This gave me consolation and release. I also realized that I could no longer rely on weight loss to change my own fate. The whole life of every person is in God’s hands, and I must submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangement.

Later, I saw these words of God: “It is like someone saying to you: ‘Your face is shaped wonderfully. Just a little short along the bridge of the nose, but if you have that fixed, you will be a world-class beauty!’ For someone who has never wanted to have cosmetic surgery, would their heart be moved hearing these words? (Yes.) So are these words seductive? Is this seduction tempting to you? Is it testing? (Yes.) Does God say things like this? (No.) Was there any hint of this in God’s words that we looked at just now? (No.) Why? Does God say what He thinks in His heart? Can man see God’s heart through His words? (Yes.) But when the serpent had spoken those words to the woman, were you able to see its heart? (No.) And because of man’s ignorance, they were easily seduced by the serpent’s words, they were easily hooked, easily led. So were you able to see Satan’s intentions? Were you able to see the purpose behind what it said? Were you able to see its plot and its cunning scheme? (No.) What kind of disposition is represented by Satan’s way of speaking? What kind of essence have you seen in Satan through these words? (Evil.) Evil. Is it insidious? Perhaps on the surface it smiles at you or reveals no expression whatsoever. But in its heart it is calculating how to reach its objective, and it is this objective that you are unable to see. You are then seduced by all the promises it gives you, all the advantages it talks about. You see them as good, and you feel that what it says is more useful, more substantial than what God says. When this happens, does man not then become a submissive prisoner? (Yes.) So is this means used by Satan not diabolical? You allow yourself to sink low. Without moving a finger, with these two sentences you are happy to follow along with it, to comply with it. Its objective has been reached. Is this not so? (Yes.) Is this intention not sinister? Is this not Satan’s most primal countenance? (Yes.) From Satan’s words, man can see its sinister motives, see its hideous countenance and see its essence” (“God Himself, the Unique IV” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh). The revelations in God’s words allowed me to see that the pursuit of a fine physical figure is Satan’s trick. Satan uses some lies and fallacies to deceive me. On the outside, they sound very reasonable and kind, as if it’s for my own good, so that I am unknowingly deceived and controlled by them. For example, “A graceful lady is a gentleman’s desire,” “A woman’s asset is her figure and face,” and “As long as you have a good figure, you’ll get the praise of people around you and the love of your husband, and your life will be more exciting.” All the time, I was fooled by these satanic lies and they led me by the nose. I thought wholeheartedly that only by having a fine figure would I be able to grasp my husband’s heart, and receive the praise and esteem of others. In order to satisfy my vanity, to reach the goals of my own desire, I didn’t even hesitate to use drugs to damage my own body. But in the end, what it brought me were only the torment of sickness and pain that I cannot shake away. Only then did I realize that when people follow the trends of the world and live for the flesh, they are suffering from Satan’s trampling and affliction. At the same time, I also recognized that only God’s word can allow people to understand the truth, see through Satan’s tricks, and rescue people from Satan’s deception and harm. Slowly, I turned away from Satan’s lies and didn’t rely on those weight loss pills and food. I no longer cared about other people’s gazes and their critiques about me, nor did I care about how my husband treated me. Instead, I believed in the destiny God has for me, and I lived by God’s words. I ate regularly every day and normally read God’s word, pursued the truth, and performed my duty as a creature of God. Unwittingly, I recovered, and there were few patches on my body. Thank God! I know that this is all God’s love for me. It is God that has brought me before Him, bestowed the truth upon me, and given me discernment, so that I am no longer tricked by Satan and am able to live under God’s care and protection. My spirit is released and set free, I have a proper goal in life to pursue, and no longer live in so much pain.

Reviewing the process of my losing weight, it was truly full of difficulties and danger. I almost ended up losing my life. If it wasn’t for God’s care and protection and His salvation, I would still be trapped in this evil current, stubbornly seeking after a perfect figure and being afflicted and trampled by Satan…. It was God’s words that allowed me to understand that all of this was caused by Satan, which used my vanity to confuse, seduce, and cheat me, so that I sank low and was trapped in its snare and unable to escape. Thanks to God’s words that awakened me, I was no longer bothered by my figure, nor did I care how others judged me. Instead, I only pursued the truth, lived by God’s word, and submitted to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, so as to live out the true likeness of man that God demands and receive God’s approval. I felt that living like this was very happy and fulfilling. After a period of time, as my husband saw that my illness was getting better, that my mental outlook was improving, that my attitude toward life became positive and optimistic, and that all the brothers and sisters in the churchwere good honest people, he didn’t cold-shoulder me for my weight anymore and was nicer to me. I thank God from the bottom of my heart that His words have brought an upturn in my life. Now, my life is full of happiness. I am extremely released and free when living church life and performing my duties with my brothers and sisters. I realize that only by giving myself into God’s hand and submitting to God’s sovereignty and arrangement can I gain the greatest happiness and live the most beautiful life!