Letting Go of My Resentment for My Ex-Husband, Leading My Son on the Right Path

(Minghui.org) To help predestined people learn the truth about Falun Dafa and be saved, I’d like to share my experience about how I resolved many grievances and educated my child by following the principles of Dafa. I hope it will help more people see the beauty of Dafa cultivation and begin practicing.

Guiding My Son to Be Kind to His Stepmother

I began to practice Falun Dafa in 1998. Soon after, because I did not study the Fa well and failed to handle the relationship with my husband appropriately, he divorced me. At that time, our property was assigned by his company, so I did not fight over the property and let him keep it.

After the divorce, I wasn’t diligent and slacked off in my cultivation, so, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Dafa in 1999, I gave it up. When I got sick in 2003, I returned to Dafa but I still wasn’t diligent. In particular, I wasn’t able to get out from under the shadow of my divorce and always resented my ex-husband.

After the divorce, my son lived with his father until my ex-husband remarried, and then my son came to live with me. He was in the fourth grade at the time. He was emotionally unstable and hated school. Because my son was rebellious and had a bad temper, I felt very bitter and tired. I often cried and thought life was unfair. I often thought about taking revenge on my ex-husband. I even deliberately said some not very nice things to my son’s stepmother on the phone.

Because my ex-husband was poisoned by the propaganda of the staged self-immolation on Tiananmen Square, when he found out that I was practicing again , he reported me to my employer. He said that he was afraid that I’d have our son killed. My boss, however, knew the truth about Dafa and sided with me, thus handling my husband’s misconceptions properly. From then on, people where I worked knew that I practiced Dafa. After that, I gradually became aware that I needed to be diligent in my cultivation.

I reminded myself that I should not harm Dafa’s reputation, that I needed to follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to validate Dafa. I made up my mind to use my actions to expose the CCP lies, to validate the beauty of Dafa, and to use the facts to tell people that practitioners were not like how they were depicted in the propaganda on TV.

I knew that nothing happens by chance. Maybe I owed my ex-husband something from my previous life, and now I was paying it back. Through a very painful process, I gradually let go of my resentment for my ex-husband and my son’s stepmother, and at the same time guided my son to respect his father and treat his stepmother nicely.

One weekend while he was at his father’s house, my son told me on the phone that he’d fought with his stepmother again, which made his father want to divorce her. I knew this was not right because Master tells us to treat everyone with kindness. I have a responsibility to educate my son.

When my son came home, I asked him about the situation and told him that he shouldn’t be so rude to his elders. I then called his stepmother to apologize. I admitted that I didn’t discipline my son very well and asked her not to mind if he was rude to her. I also said that I shouldn’t have deliberately upset her before. She was very touched. Inspired by Dafa, a family crisis was avoided.

When my son went to his father’s again, I often communicated with his stepmother. I said that I understood her difficulties and told her that if the boy didn’t do something properly, she could tell me and I would thank her. To avoid misunderstandings, I always asked her to convey the messages to my ex-husband directly.

As time went on, we got along very well with each other. When she was hospitalized, I visited her and thanked her for her efforts with my son. We went from being enemies to friends. Because of my words and deeds, my son now gets along very well with his father and stepmother, and they now also see the beauty of Dafa. I’d like to thank Master for his benevolent saving grace.

Leading My Son Out of His Rebellious Period

Children of divorce can be very difficult to manage. My son started to “fall in love” as early as junior high school. He was tired of studying and he was very temperamental. He even said, “Why do I have to go to school? I can still get along in life without going to school.”

We often had conflicts. The worse his grades were, the lower his mood became. Sometimes he even broke things, which often made me cry and feel very depressed. As my xinxing improved, when we ran into conflicts, I adjusted my mindset and did not get upset. Sometimes I apologized to him.

Once, before my son went to school, he overturned the dining table in anger. After he left, I quietly cleaned up the mess. When he came home from school, I said calmly, “I know it is not because you don’t care about studying, but because you were in a bad mood that you didn’t feel like studying. It was my fault, and I shouldn’t get angry. Fellow practitioners criticized me for not doing things according to Master’s requirements. I didn’t handle things well, but I’ll try to do better next time.” He was very surprised by my reaction.

Gradually, my son was willing to talk to me and tell me about school. I took the opportunity to tell him more Fa principles. He didn’t like to study, so I no longer forced or nagged him, just chose the right time to guide him. He loved to go to the Internet cafe on weekends, so I suggested that he bring his classmates home to play, and I would entertain them when they came. This showed I respected him and his friends and helped me understand what kind of people he was friends with. Later, in junior high school, high school, and even in college, my son brought his classmates over.

With his consent, I enrolled him in his favorite writing and swimming classes to cultivate his interest in learning. I guided him step by step, and later enrolled him in English classes run by his favorite teacher. After my son came to live with me, I often communicated and cooperated with the teacher without his knowledge. Gradually, his grades improved, and he was able to get into a healthy cycle with his studies.

Guided by Dafa’s principles, I raised a son who started out being extremely rebellious, had premature love affairs, skipped school, and whose father had no hope for him, and turned him into a kind, sensible young man, who has respect for Dafa. Prior to his senior year school exam, he took the initiative to wear the amulet with “Falun Dafa is good” on it. He did exceptionally well on the exam and was admitted to a famous high school, which was something neither his teachers nor his father or step-mother had expected.

My Son Clarified the Facts to His Classmates

My son saw how practicing Falun Dafa changed me in body and mind, especially my attitude toward his father’s new family, and my guidance and understanding when he went through his rebellious period. He became respectful of Dafa from deep down. He was also very supportive of my practicing Dafa. Sometimes I’d read him Master’s new articles that I thought would help his cultivation.

I read him the new article Master published on April 14, 2008:

“The three things are what Dafa disciples currently need to do well. Human rights are something that human beings pursue and value, whereas cultivators make a goal of transcending this world. Dafa disciples’ working against the persecution is what takes place on the surface, but the reality is that these are acts of saving people, saving sentient beings. The Human Rights Torch Relay does involve working against persecution and helping people to see the evil party for what it is, but it cannot take the place of clarifying the truth to save people. The Human Rights Torch Relay has everyday people as its driving force and was initiated for the purpose of exposing and resisting the evil party’s persecution of the Chinese people, so it is not Dafa disciples that this event is for. Dafa disciples in mainland China should not set aside their truth-clarification work and participate on a large scale.” (“Clarification,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)

One day when he came home from school, he was all excited and said, “I defended Dafa’s reputation today!”

When I asked him how, he replied, “Practitioners had put Dafa flyers in the students’ bicycle baskets. During the self-study class today, many students said that practitioners oppose the Olympic Games. I told them that was not true. I said that because I’d read Master’s article that says not to participate in the ‘The Human Rights Torch Relay,’ because that’s a regular person’s affair.”

I was very happy that he could tell right from wrong. I said, “You are saving your classmates. You’ll be blessed for sure!”

“There Must Be a Special Parent Behind Him!”

My son got into the university of his choice with an extraordinary score of 94 points higher than the average of the three practice exams before. After the parents’ meeting for high school graduates, both his father and classroom teacher gladly decided to quit the CCP and its affiliates. The teacher decided to quit because she understood how good Dafa is by the way she saw me educate my son.

Because my son lacked a solid academic foundation, his grades and attitude toward learning were shaky, so his teacher often called me. Plus, his relationship with that teacher was not good.

As graduation neared, the school scheduled a field day. The students were busy preparing for the exam, and, because they had complaints about the class teacher, no one signed up for it. My son loved sports. He had done a lot of work to enable students who were good at sports to actively participate in the competition. As a result, his class did well and won awards.

On the morning of the school awards ceremony, the teacher decided that the class president would accept the award instead of my son, who was a sports leader. My son was very angry when he heard that and very depressed when he got home. After I heard why he was upset, I asked him. “Did you do what you did for field day for yourself or for your class?”

“For my class, of course!”

I replied, “Since it was for your class, does it matter who accepts the award?”

My son replied, “The sports leaders in all the other classes get to accept the award, but in our class, the class president is going to accept it. So now the others will think I made a mistake!”

I said. “Let me tell you a story.” I then talked to him about how Han Xin had to endure the humiliation of crawling in between someone’s legs mentioned inZhuan Falun.

He said cheerfully, “I’m not insulted. I know what to do.”

He returned to school and told the teacher that he agreed to let the class president collect the prize in the afternoon. The teacher was surprised at his sudden change. After the parent-teacher conference, the teacher said to me, “Given his sudden turnaround, I knew there must be a special parent at work behind this child!”

In addition, given his exceptional performance on the exam, she truly believed in the extraordinariness of Dafa and gladly agreed to quit the CCP. Later, some of his other teachers also agreed to quit.

Conclusion

If I didn’t practice Falun Dafa, I’d still be bitter over my divorce. If I didn’t use Dafa’s principles to guide my son, neither his father nor his stepmother would have been happy, and my son wouldn’t have grown up to be so healthy, optimistic, and kind. Dafa makes me healthy both mentally and physically, teaches me about morality, and resolves grudges so that both our families can live happy and fulfilling lives. I’m truly grateful to Master and Dafa!