By Yang Yue
Everyone hopes to be excellent and attractive, and be looked up to and praised by others wherever they go. I was not an exception. However, things backfired on me. My various qualifications didn’t satisfy me. I felt I was worthless, and was a fifth wheel in this world. That was why I was often painful …
I am slow of speech and not very talkative, and some words I speak even are slurred. When at school, I pronounced incorrectly no matter whether reading in Chinese or in English. Besides, I was introverted and not good at communicating with others, which resulted in me always failing to fit in well with them. Therefore, I disdained myself, and instead I envied those who were articulate and outgoing. When I saw that others sang well or danced well and they all had the stages where they could show themselves, but I was not good at both singing and dancing, I blamed myself for my awkwardness. When I saw others had white skin, big eyes and double eyelids, I was more envious, and felt I was like an ugly duckling. When I saw others had simple thoughts and considered things in a simple way, but I, whether big or small matters happen, would think a lot and worry unduly, I thus envied them and felt that living like them wasn’t tiring … In short, as long as I didn’t have the strengths that others had, I would envy them. When I could not realize my wishes, I would be worried and would complain, fantasizing that one day I could get the flower of seven colors like the girl in the text “The Flower of Seven Colors,” which I learned in primary school. If throwing a petal, so long as I said what I wanted I would get the flower and realize my wish. If really so, how good that would be!
Not until I believed in God did my life have a turn. It was God’s words that dispelled my dismay and let me see a different self.
I saw God’s words saying: “In the thoughts of God, He intended to give each and every appearance, and all sorts of functions and uses, to the various living things He created, and so none of the things God made were cut from the same mold. From their exterior to their internal composition, from their living habits to the location that they occupy—each is different. … In short, when it comes to all things, man should defer to the authority of the Creator, which is to say, defer to the order appointed by the Creator to all things; this is the wisest attitude. Only an attitude of searching for, and obedience to, the original intentions of the Creator is the true acceptance and certainty of the authority of the Creator. It is good with God, so what reason does man have to find fault?” “What is the cause of this pain? Is it because of God’s sovereignty, or because a person was born unlucky? Obviously neither is true. At bottom, it is because of the paths people take, the ways people choose to live their lives. Some people may not have realized these things. But when you truly know, when you truly come to recognize that God has sovereignty over human fate, when you truly understand that everything God has planned for and decided for you is a great benefit, and is a great protection, then you feel your pain gradually lighten, and the whole of you become relaxed, free, liberated.”
Having read these two passages of God’s words, I saw the light and my sad soul received its great comfort, feeling like the clouds had been dispelled and I saw sunny skies. I had a lot of dissatisfaction with and complaints about my qualification that I lived very painfully. The root cause was that I didn’t know God’s authority and sovereignty, much less see these environments that God arranged were great protection and benefits to me. Consequently, I could never submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, and even wanted in vain to change my fate and throw off the arrangements of God by my own efforts. Therefore, the dream which I pursued not being realized, I would be painful, discouraged and disappointed, and even I would give up on myself, complain and live in agony, without ability to extricate myself. Actually, everything was already predestined by God, including what appearance I have, and what my talents and disposition are, and all this is not up to me. Moreover, there are God’s will and wisdom within the existence of various people with different appearances and characters. I should accept that with an attitude of obedience toward God.
After having a little understanding of God’s sovereignty and predestination, I started to search for God’s good work on me. After that, I discovered God treated me fairly. For example: Although I am slow in speech, I speak and carry myself with elegant ease. More importantly, I am diligent in my thoughts: I will consider carefully when something happens, and I will be steady, serious, careful and meticulous when doing things; introverted as I am, I dare not act wildly based on my own ideas when encountering issues. I thus avoid many troubles and don’t make my family worry; I can endure hardships and have perseverance. When doing something, no matter how hard it is, I will hang on and won’t give up easily. And I am not easy to be knocked down by the difficulties in life. What’s more, although my appearance is ordinary and not beautiful, I am born with regular features. My plain appearance protects me from encountering many temptations and dangerous situations, and in such an evil age, that’s a great protection to me; besides, my plain appearance keeps me from overly pursuing superficial things, saving me from the danger of falling in the world’s evil trends of today. … Were all these things not the strengths that the Creator gave me? So, what did I have to complain about? At this moment, I thought of my younger sister: She, like me, always is unsatisfied with her looks and character. First, she disdains herself, thinking that her figure is not as slender as others’ for she is tall and fat, and that her features are not pretty for she is a girl with small eyes and full lips; her parents and relatives say she is thoughtless; she thinks she is not kind at heart. … As long as there is something that she is unsatisfied with, she will envy others. Thus, she often feels unbearable pain deep in her soul. In fact, she makes the same mistake as me, that is, we all don’t know God’s authority. Yet she doesn’t know when she disdains herself, instead others envy her distinctive strengths. For example: Her words are funny, which can make others smile their pleasantest; she is easygoing, and can get along with both adults and children; she can sing and dance, bringing much pleasure and confidence to others; she also can … God bestowed too much on her but she couldn’t see, so she made a fuss about nothing.
For us to get rid of annoyance and sufferings, we must come before the Creator to know His authority and obey His sovereignty and arrangements. If we know God’s benevolent and holy essence and what He has and is from what He does, we will see that God is too almighty and wise. What God orchestrates and arranges is for the best. Understanding this, we will be surprised to find: Turns out that every single thing God created is the very best, and each of us human beings is no exception, even we don’t have the flower of seven colors.
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