(Minghui.org) In a single month more than 40 years ago, I went from being a vibrant, healthy young woman to someone tormented by incurable pain every day. I was afflicted with a chronic, stubborn illness, and all the joy and vitality I once possessed were gone. Over a decade later, my life was fully restored. What caused such a dramatic change? I am 69 years old and have practiced Falun Dafa for nearly 30 years. I have experienced countless miraculous events during that time.
I was born in the late 1950s in a remote, impoverished small town in China. Although my family was poor during my childhood, I rarely fell ill. Even when I caught a cold or had a fever, I would tough it out and recover without taking any medicine or going to the hospital.
As an adult, I had a job and a family that were the envy of my peers. My husband worked for an import-export firm and treated me with the utmost thoughtfulness and care. He frequently traveled for business, bringing back gifts that never failed to make my colleagues envious. My life was smooth sailing and carefree.
Then my daughter’s birth brought joy to my life, but it also turned it upside down.
Right after my daughter was born, we had visitors all day long. I sat up to keep them company. By the end of the day, I was so exhausted that my lower back felt as if it were broken. From that moment on, I could not sit up by myself. I had to hold onto something, pull myself up, then lean against something to sit for only a short while. I was at a loss, desperately hoping I might somehow return to my former self. However, it was not long before I developed an even more severe problem.
One night as I slept, I broke out in a profuse, clammy sweat. My heart fluttered with anxiety, and I felt as if I were suffocating. I moved my hands and feet from under the covers. Then I went back to sleep. Suddenly, I felt a sensation in my hands and feet, as if I had received an electric shock. Chilling coldness seemed to penetrate from my fingertips and the soles of my feet deep into my bones. From that moment on, my hands and feet never felt warm. Postpartum, I had developed rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic, debilitating condition that is incurable. Having always enjoyed robust health, I simply could not accept this reality. I wept on my bed. After that, my eyes always felt dry.
I was only in my 20s and could not accept that the rest of my life would be like this. I began taking different medications and seeing different doctors, but nothing helped. The medications actually caused my milk supply to dwindle and left me bloated and puffy. I felt hopeless.
Back then, we lived in a bungalow without heat. On winter mornings, everything I touched felt icy cold. I had to wear gloves to cook. In the summer, I had to tuck cotton insoles into my shoes and sleep under a thick cotton blanket on hot nights.
Ten years later, we moved into an apartment building. The living conditions were better, but my physical condition had deteriorated to the point that even simple household chores were a struggle. I could no longer bend over to sweep the floor. While watching television, I had to use eye drops to ease my dry eyes. I simply endured, dragging myself through each passing day.
My younger brother worked at the grain-transit and storage warehouse in our county. Grain is harvested in the fall and stored during winter. But there is little work in the summer, so he was usually on leave, looking for something to do. One year, he spent the time exploring qigong. His classmate recommended Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong) to him.
One day, my younger brother mentioned Falun Dafa’s remarkable effects and how it could eliminate illness and improve physical fitness. I thought, “Since he said it’s good, I’ll check it out. I have nothing to lose.” That simple thought marked a turning point in my life.
It was around 6 p.m. on December 22, 1997, when I knocked on the door of a modest, single-story house with a small courtyard. A kind-looking man in his 60s welcomed me inside. The room was packed with people, all concentrating on the video they were watching. I quietly slipped in and watched along with everyone else. The lecturer looked very familiar, but I couldn’t recall where I had seen him before. By the time I had watched all nine lectures, I felt the teachings were truly profound. I thought, “Falun Gong is truly wonderful. I am late in starting.”
Before I even realized it, my lower back pain was gone, and my hands and feet were no longer cold. I was overjoyed. One day as I was watching TV, my eyes became dry again. I habitually reached for my eye drops and applied them. Suddenly, searing pain shot through my eyes. It felt as if they had been doused with chili water. I thought, “Could it be that my eyes have healed because I started practicing Falun Dafa? Do I no longer need to use eye drops?” The pain vanished instantly. From then on, my eyes never felt dry again. I could finally live like a normal person.
After I began practicing Dafa, my body gradually recovered, and my appearance grew increasingly youthful. My colleagues would comment, “How have you become so young? Your figure looks like a young girl’s.” Although I am almost 70, I look 20 years younger.
Before practicing Falun Dafa, I was told I had a uterine fibroid. The doctor advised me to have it surgically removed, but I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time because it didn’t bother me. Not long after I started practicing, I suddenly had pain in my lower abdomen that grew increasingly intense. One day, I felt an urgent need to use the restroom. While on the toilet, I experienced a severe pain in my lower abdomen. As soon as I was finished, the pain vanished completely. I saw a fleshy mass in the toilet, slightly larger than a thumb. It suddenly struck me that this could be the uterine fibroid that had detached and passed out of my body on its own. It was simply miraculous.
My older brother lives in the country. My younger sister borrowed a car so we could visit him at the New Year. I had been practicing Dafa for less than a month. I suddenly developed severe cold symptoms, including a cough, fever, and aching bones. Borrowing a vehicle was not easy at that time. My sister asked if I could still go with her. I replied, “I’ll be fine by tomorrow.” By the next day, I had fully recovered.
Shortly after I began practicing Falun Dafa, water started leaking from the bathtub in the apartment directly above ours and dripping down next to our bathtub. It became a steady stream, soaking a large patch of the ceiling. I put a basin on the floor to catch the water. My husband planned to tell our upstairs neighbor not to use their bathtub until the leak was fixed.
However, our apartment building did not have a continuous water supply. It was provided only at scheduled times. Everyone kept a bathtub filled with water to use for flushing toilets and doing laundry. I persuaded my husband to put himself in the neighbor’s shoes: it would have been a great inconvenience for them not to store water in the bathtub. Putting a basin underneath to catch the drips was a good workaround. Almost magically, the dripping began to slow and eventually stopped completely. Thanks to a single selfless thought, putting the needs of others before our own, I successfully averted a potential conflict with our neighbors.
My husband had four sisters and two brothers. When their parents passed away, they left their children several tens of thousands of yuan. As the eldest, one sister-in-law took charge of distributing the inheritance. She divided the funds equally among her siblings but took nothing for herself.
My husband was displeased because he felt that, since he had always treated his parents so well, he deserved a larger share. The more he thought about it after we got home, the angrier he became. He even declared that if his eldest sister ever came to our door again, he wouldn’t let her in. I said, “It was your duty to treat your parents well—they raised you. The fact that you were able to see them off without spending a single cent of your own money is something you should be grateful for. Your sister distributed the money among everyone without keeping a penny for herself. She hasn’t done anything wrong.” My husband then stopped complaining about his eldest sister.
Because I practice Falun Dafa, my physical health and my moral character have improved. I have become more tolerant and generous when facing difficulties and no longer calculate personal gains or losses. I live by Dafa’s principles and approach every situation from the other person’s perspective. This is the power of Dafa. It is the power of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.