exercising my literacy

A story of love.

"Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:34-35


Let me tell you a story.

It begins in a town in China, in the anxious years of the Second World War. There is a man and his wife. They have two boys. For reasons unclear - the chaos of war, the threat of unemployment, the tension of marriage - the man moves to Hong Kong. She hears no news of him.

The man meets another woman there. They fall in love.

The wife in China pines for her husband. Someone tells her the good news of Jesus. "I'll believe in Jesus when he brings me back my husband!", she retorts haughtily.

In Hong Kong, the man and his lover marry. Children arrive quickly - two boys and a girl. This woman doesn't want to be a mother. Everyday the resentment grows, until one day she leaves without a trace. A man with three toddlers; three babies without a mother.

As the war subsides, the Chinese wife moves to Hong Kong to look for work. The man hears that she is in town. He is desperate - he isn't coping with three kids and a job. He pleas with his first wife to take him back, help him out.

She is shocked to hear from him. She thought he was gone forever. In dumbfounded awe, she remembers her words about Jesus. "You are real, Jesus", she sees. She follows Christ from that day on. She brings up the three children as though her own.

A year on, the wife falls pregnant. They cannot afford a sixth child. Her friends tell her to get rid of the mistress' children. They are the evidence of his infidelity! Take them to the orphanage! Leave them on the street!

But she does not.

As God gave His son up for her, she gives birth to her sixth son and gives him away.

She does so so that she could demonstrate her love for these three kids.

She does so so that she could demonstrate God's love for these three kids.

Many years later my godfather visits from Hong Kong. He's a big famous preacher there. I ask him innocently about how he became a Christian. He tells me, it was from the love that his stepmother showed to him and his brother and sister in his fifty years of life.

By this shall all men know that you are my disciple, if you have love, one for another.

posted by me. @ 6:12 PM