(Minghui.org) As an old Chinese saying goes, every family has its problems. This is so true. I am 58 years old this year. Before I started practicing Falun Dafa, my family was always in some conflict. I am a university graduate and my wife has only a junior high school education, so I looked down on her. We argued over trivial matters all the time. She complained about me and wanted a divorce. I didn’t understand why this happened, despite all my academic knowledge, so I complained to heaven and earth. It seemed that the other families around us were also living like this. Every family truly has its problems.
Things turned around after I practiced Falun Dafa.
A friend gave me Zhuan Falun in the spring of 1998. I finished reading it in one go. It was indeed a treasure. My heart opened up. I understood the meaning of life. I wanted to become a good person, a better person and cultivate kindness. I wanted to be considerate, become a selfless person with high moral standards, and return to my original true, kind self. Falun Dafa was what I had been searching for all my life.
I started to treat my family members, relatives, friends and other people kindly according to Dafa principles. I gradually become broad-minded and tolerant. I considered others first and was no longer arrogant. I see my wife in a positive light now. Our family conflicts have greatly reduced. My family is in harmony. I am ready to help my family members and friends and I am no longer mean to them like I was before. I can easily tackle family problems. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is like a master key that helps dissolve many seemingly hard-to-solve conflicts.
My father-in-law suffered from a serious lumbar disc herniation 10 years ago and was hospitalized. A problem arose: who would look after him and stay overnight at the hospital? He has four daughters and their husbands. All of them were factory workers and were busy. Their children were small. They didn’t have time to look after their father. I said to my wife, “I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Master told us that we should consider other people first. Since the other siblings are not available, I will look after him in the hospital. They can come and visit if they have time.” I asked for some leave from my company. My father-in-law stayed in the hospital for 14 days and I looked after him for 12 days. For the first few days, he was not able to move or go to the toilet. He lay in bed all the time. I had to wash him, massage him, turn his body around and chat with him to ease his depression. I had hardly any sleep. Other patients in the room said that I was very filial and better than if I had been his own son.
My father got sick three years ago. I took him from our hometown to my city. He had an operation and was hospitalized for 18 days. My two brothers lived in the countryside and did casual jobs. Their families were poor. They were too busy and didn’t have time to come to the city to look after our father. I persuaded my mother to stay at home. I looked after my father in the hospital for 18 days. The medical expenses were 60,000 yuan. My father suggested that my brothers share the medical expenses equally with me. It is the custom in my hometown that brothers should share the expenses and take turns looking after parents in the hospital. Brothers often fought with each other if they had to pay more of the expenses or spend more time in the hospital.
I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. I understood my brothers’ hardships and felt for them. I didn’t ask them to share the expenses or look after our father in the hospital. My parents thought it was unfair and after my father was discharged from the hospital they asked me to ask my brothers for money. I said to them, “My salary is not high, but it’s stable. My brothers live in the village and do manual work. They get up early and come home late. It is not easy for them to earn money. It is fine that I contributed more.” They knew that I was considerate of others because I practice Falun Dafa. They were very thankful to Master and Dafa. My brothers gave me some money later on when they could afford to.
My mother had cataract surgery in 2008 and was hospitalized for eight days. I looked after her in the hospital for the eight days and paid her expenses. At the time my sisters-in-law were having a conflict with my parents. I didn’t tell them about my mother’s hospitalization and didn’t ask my brothers for a penny. They saw that I didn’t fuss over things with them. They gradually treated my parents well. The conflicts between my mother and sisters-in-law became less and less. They accompanied my parents, who were in their 80s, in the village. I didn’t need to worry about them and could focus on my work. My parents live happily now and recite “Falun Dafa is good” every day.
Conflicts between family members are common nowadays regarding sharing the medical expenses for parents’ hospitalizations. Brothers and sisters and other relatives don’t get along and become bitter toward each other. If I didn’t practice Falun Dafa. I would have behaved like them. It was laughable and pitiful. Falun Dafa can fundamentally change a person.
My wife had a short-lived marriage before me. She has a boy named Xiao Wei. They divorced because her ex-husband had an affair. Xiao Wei was only one-year-old at the time. Because he was the only grandson, his grandparents demanded that the judge allow Xiao Wei to stay with his father. They didn’t ask for child support from his mother and demanded that his mother not see the child if possible. My wife was very sad but didn’t have a choice.
For more than 10 years, Xiao Wei lived with his father, his stepmother and his grandparents. His stepmother had a daughter who was four or five years older than Xiao Wei. His father earned a low wage but liked to get drunk. His stepmother retired very early and had only a low living allowance. She didn’t have a job, so they lived poorly. Xiao Wei’s aunt was wealthy and often gave financial support to Xiao Wei’s family.
Misfortune came unexpectedly. When Xiao Wei was in his third year of junior high school, his aunt died suddenly. His aunt’s husband was not on good terms with his grandparents and cut the relationship with them. When Xiao Wei was in senior high school, his school fees and living expenses increased a lot. His family barely had the money to support his schooling. His father spent a lot of money on drinking and had to support his stepdaughter who was at university. Xiao Wei relied on his grandparents’ small pension to support his studies. But misfortune came in pairs: his grandfather became seriously ill and passed away. Their family’s finances became very tight. They were unable to support Xiao Wei’s high school studies.
With no way out, Xiao Wei’s grandmother thought of Xiao Wei’s mother and wondered if she could offer some help. As a matter of fact, Xiao Wei hadn’t visited his mother for seventeen or eighteen years, since he left her. They hadn’t contacted each other either. My wife couldn’t remember what he looked like. We had our own son to raise. I had to look after my parents as well. They are both peasants and poor. They didn’t have any pensions and relied on me to support them. We lived frugally and couldn’t save much.
When Xiao Wei came to visit us, my wife knew that he had come to ask for support. Though she hadn’t seen him for more than 10 years, she wanted to help him but worried because university tuition and living expenses were not a small amount. After he graduated from university, he would look for a job, buy a car and an apartment, and get married. There were many things for which she would have to provide money. It was like an unfathomable hole to fill. If her son did well in the future, we would be ok. But if he went astray, what should we do? It was unimaginable.
My wife’s friends and colleagues tried to persuade her not to accept him, because he only came for money. They asked her not to give him any money or just give him a little. They warned her that she would bring trouble to herself if he became demanding. They also wondered if I would agree to give him money. So many remarried families had fights over child support expenses, treatment of the children, etc, and even became enemies. Her friends suggested every possible scenario where things might go wrong.
My wife worried so much. Her biggest worry was that I wouldn’t agree. She was very cautious when she asked my opinion. Frankly speaking, when she told me about the situation, I felt uncomfortable. I was a bit worried. I just earned a salary. Tuition was not a small amount and would be a big burden for my family. I didn’t know if her son was a good boy. If he was not … But I only hesitated a while. I said to her, “I agree to pay for your son’s school fees. You know I have practiced Falun Dafa for over a decade. You know my principles are Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Our Master teaches us to be kind to people. This is also my principle. Regardless of how the kid is, we must help him. Don’t worry. Your son is my son. He has difficulties now. Who would help him if we don’t help him? You tell your son to take it easy and not worry. We will pay his university tuition.” She was very moved.
When we met Xiao Wei, I told him my thoughts. He was overjoyed. He told his grandmother, his father, and his stepmother. They were all very happy. Finally they could live in peace. While Xiao Wei was at university, I didn’t give him the whole amount of money all at once. I feared that he would spend it all. I put money into his card once a month. He often called me and was willing to chat with me. He confided in me and told me his problems and worries. I was willing to listen to him and told him about the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I helped him with things that were troubling him and told him to be kind to people and about the principle of retribution. He readily accepted Falun Dafa’s principles and thanked me for telling him such good principles.
He graduated from university in 2017 and found a good job in a big city. He got engaged in 2019 and wanted to buy an apartment in the city. He was very worried because the down payment would be 400,000 or 500,000 yuan (~USD$62,000 or $78,600). His parents worried so much and could only give him 10,000 yuan (~USD$1500), a fraction of what he needed. His grandmother gave him all that she had, which was 100,000 yuan (~$15,700). She was so worried that she got sick. Nowadays, it is not easy to borrow money from others. Xiao Wei called us, hesitated, and then asked me if I could offer some help. He said that it would still be ok if I could just lend him some. He was shy about asking for money from me. I asked him about his situation and learned that he had applied for a mortgage and still needed 200,000 ($31,000). My wife discussed it with me. I didn’t hesitate and transferred the money to him the next day. Most of our savings went to him. Xiao Wei was so touched. His parents were very grateful to me. His grandmother was so happy that she recovered from her illness. His whole family didn’t expect that Xiao Wei could have such a good stepfather.
I said to Xiao Wei, “I was quite selfish before I practiced Falun Dafa. I would not have acted this way before. Falun Dafa changed me fundamentally. I let go of personal grievances and became a benevolent and considerate person. Our practitioners are all like me. When you have the ability to help others in the future, you can help your relatives and friends and help them solve some problems.”
Xiao Wei also learned from me that Falun Dafa is a righteous way that teaches people to be kind; that Dafa practitioners are truly good people and that the CCP deceives people, frames Falun Dafa, and tries to sabotage the universal principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. He quit the CCP organizations and chose a good future for himself.
He is blessed now. He has been successful at work and has become a young manager in the big company where he has worked for three years. He often calls me. Every time he comes back, we meet at his grandparents’ home on his mother’s side. They had never expected that their dear grandson would come back after they were separated for over a decade and that he would be so successful. They told him that he should not forget his stepfather.
Their neighbors also praised me highly and said to my parents-in-law, “We have never seen such a good person. He treats Xiao Wei like his own son. Your Falun Dafa son-in-law is so different!”
I wish that all people in this world could know the facts about Falun Dafa and remember “Falun Dafa is good” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” so that they will be blessed and saved by Dafa.