The Church of Almighty God | I’ve Finally Forgiven My Husband’s Betrayal

I’ve Finally Forgiven My Husband’s Betrayal

By Quanxin

I had believed in the Lord for forty years. Once, because my husband betrayed me and I couldn’t forgive him all the time, I lived in a state of sinning and confessing without any outlet, living in unbearable pain, and I even developed melancholia because of being bound and controlled by my sins. Thinking that if not for God’s mercy and salvation, I would never have felt the happiness of living nor would I have gotten rid of the bondage of sin.

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Originally, I had a very happy family. Because of the need of my husband’s work, we lived far from each other and couldn’t often meet. But this didn’t influence our feelings, and my husband was still tender and considerate toward me. As long as he had a holiday, he would go back to Taipei and take my children and me out for dinner or to travel around. Our whole family was harmonious. My relatives and friends all envied me very much and I also felt my life was perfect because I could possess such a family.

However, a phone call shattered the tranquil calm of my family. One night, I suddenly received a call of my husband’s mistress. At that moment, it was like thunder from a clear sky to me: My husband, who loved me so much, actually had found another woman outside. I didn’t believe that he would betray me, so I called him to ask whether he really did that. At that time, he didn’t acknowledge that. I thought: No smoke without fire. Since the woman has called me, I must definitely get to the bottom of this. However, I was also in a mental conflict and felt tortured, thinking: He is so honest and treats family well. How could such a thing happen? But in case he really has betrayed me, what should I do? How I hope that everything is not true! During that period of time, I couldn’t eat or sleep and I also regretted not going with him to Taizhong at that time.

In my miserable struggle, I decided that no matter whether or not this thing had happened, I would have to investigate it. The next day, I called my husband and got his address in Taizhong. A week later, I suddenly went to his dwelling place and began to comb every corner in the house while he went to work. I never thought that I really found a box of woman’s clothes, and besides, I found a love letter written to my husband by that woman at the dump. I was so angry that I trembled and bitterly cried, thinking: I take good care of the family in order to allow him to work outside with peace of mind, but he actually betrayed me and had a mistress. The more I thought about that, the more I felt angry, so when my husband returned, I said to him in a fit of pique, “Let’s get divorced. I really can’t bear such a blow.” Seeing that he couldn’t hide any more, he told me the truth. Moreover, he said he made the mistake just because he couldn’t resist the enticements in a moment of confusion and that he had broken up with that woman. Besides, he pitifully pled with me not to divorce him, saying that he loved our family and me very much and promising he wouldn’t do that any more. In fact, my husband treated me very well, but as a woman, how could I accept the truth that my husband had had an affair? Later, though we didn’t divorce, our marriage had been no longer perfect. My heart had suffered great pain, so I didn’t dare to believe him any longer; no matter how well he treated me, I all felt he was deceiving me. Afterward, I became suspicious: As long as he wasn’t at my side, I would guess whether or not he went to find that woman again and I would call him unceasingly every day; sometimes, when a woman’s voice came on the other end of the line, I would become very sensitive. I, who was originally outgoing became taciturn, disconsolate and dispirited: I didn’t want to step foot outside my home nor did I want to talk to others, living an exhausting and painful life. The moment I thought my family was once shattered, I would be incredibly angry and would vent all my grudges on my husband. However, every time after I scolded him, he would be silent. Seeing his painful and remorseful expression, I also felt very sad. Though I knew that flaring up hot-bloodedness and hating others were all sins and were displeasing to the Lord, I just couldn’t control myself, much less let go of the hatred for my husband.

Later, I told the group leader and the elder of our church my problems, hoping that they could help me out of my sinful behavior. But every time they just said they would pray for me and told me that the Lord is merciful and compassionate and that when I committed sins, as long as I confessed and repented, the Lord would forgive them. But I thought believing in the Lord and being able to gain His approval were not as simple as it seemed. At that time, I also looked for a way out from the Bible carefully, seeing the Lord Jesus required us to forbear with others, be patient and forgive others seventy times seven. I engraved His teachings in my mind and wanted to practice hard according to His demands, but as long as I recalled the scene of my husband betraying me or heard the topic of men around going off the rails, I would be doomed to lose my temper, and sometimes I even wanted to take revenge on that woman. Every time when I had these thoughts and ideas, I would do my utmost to betray them and even curse myself, but such situations repeated all the time and didn’t have any change over the years. I began to think: Why can I not live out the Lord’s demands, being bound and controlled by sin all along? How can I get rid of the bondage of sin?

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At the end of 2016, my younger sister came to my home with a sister and told me excitedly, “Sister, the Lord Jesus we’ve longed for has returned.” Once I heard this, I said, “The Lord has returned? Is this true?” I couldn’t help but feel a moment of pleasant surprise and thought to myself: Judging from the signs of all kinds of disasters, the Lord indeed will soon come. If the Lord really has returned, then I will be saved! However, I still had much concern: I have committed so many sins, and will the Lord still want me? I told the sister my concern, and then she read several lines of God’s word to me: Events of the past can be written off by the stroke of a pen; the future can be used to replace the past; God’s tolerance is boundless” “As long as man seeks the truth and practices the truth, God will not keep in mind what he has done. Rather, it is on the basis of man’s practice of the truth that God justifies man. This is the righteousness of God.” Hearing these words, I was moved into tears and thought: I have committed so many sins but God still takes me in.God’s love is too great!

Afterward, the sister shared with me various aspects of the truth such as the inside story and the substance of God’s three stages of work, the inside story of God’s name and the Bible, and the incarnation. What she shared was very good. Though I had believed in the Lord for decades of years, I had never heard any doctrine as good as this. I was profoundly drawn in, so I asked her: “We have believed in the Lord, but why do we still sin continuously?” She read two passages of God’s word to me：“Though Jesus did much work among man, He only completed the redemption of all mankind and became man’s sin offering, and did not rid man of all his corrupt disposition. Fully saving man from the influence of Satan not only required Jesus to take on the sins of man as the sin offering, but also required God to do greater work to completely rid man of his disposition, which has been corrupted by Satan” (“Preface”). “For, in the Age of Grace, the demons went away from man with the laying on of hands and prayer, but the corrupt dispositions within man still remained. Man was healed of his sickness and forgiven his sins, but the work for just how the corrupt satanic dispositions within man could be cast away was not done in him. Man was only saved and forgiven his sins for his faith, but the sinful nature of man was not taken away and still remained within him. The sins of man were forgiven through God incarnate, but it does not mean that man has no sin within him. The sins of man could be forgiven through the sin offering, but man has been unable to resolve the issue of just how he can no longer sin and how his sinful nature can be cast away completely and be transformed” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)”).

The sister fellowshiped with me, “At that time, the Lord Jesus just did the work of redemption so we could be forgiven of our sins and be eligible to pray to God, commune with God and enjoy the grace and blessings of God. But the redemption work of the Lord Jesus only forgave our sins without pardoning our satanic nature. Thus, it is because we still have sinful nature within us as well as the corrupt satanic disposition that we can still sin. We are arrogant, selfish, despicable and malicious, and we are narrow-minded, haggle over every little thing and even treat our family without tolerance and patience, having no human likeness at all and completely losing God’s testimony. That God becomes flesh again and expresses words to do the work of judgment and chastisement is just for the sake of taking away our deeply rooted sinful nature within. God uses His word to reveal and judge us, allowing us to know the truth of our corruption by Satan and our nature and substance of resistance to Him, and then He points out to us the path of practice, through which He instills these truths in us so that they become our life. Thus, our satanic disposition will be destroyed completely. Therefore, only by accepting the judgment and punishment of God’s word can we resolve the root of the sinful behavior.” After listening to the sister’s fellowship, I understood: The reason why I hate my husband at all times and can’t live out the Lord’s requirements is because my sinful nature is still not resolved, so I always live in the state of sinning and confessing. In the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus did the work of redemption and gave man the way of repentance, which were just for the sake of achieving the result of allowing man to confess his sins, repent and turn to the Lord, but not for resolving our sinful nature. At that moment, I gained some understanding of the Lord Jesus’ work in the Age of Grace.

These years, I had always been distressed because of my sinful behavior, but in the sharing this time, I finally found the answer. I was very curious about The Scroll Opened by the Lamb in the sister’s hands. Upon seeing this, she told me, “This book is just the little scroll from the Book of Revelation. God has come, broken the seven seals and opened the little scroll. The Scroll Opened by the Lamb is all the words expressed by God. God has revealed to us all the mysteries of the truth such as the mysteries of the three stages of work, the mystery of His incarnation as well as mankind’s future destination and outcome.” At that point, I felt immeasurably excited: I have waited for so many years and the Lord Jesus I have long longed for has finally returned. I asked the sister right away, “How much is this book?” She answered, “God’s words will be bestowed on everyone who truly thirsts for God. The living water of life is freely bestowed on those that are thirsty.” When I took the book, I felt as if I had returned to God’s embrace. It was the first time that I had felt happy and content again since my husband betrayed me, and only then did I realize I was still alive. I told myself that I would closely follow God!

From then on, I read God’s word every day and regularly gathered with brothers and sisters. In a meeting, we read two passages of God’s word: “Of course, when God becomes flesh this time, His work is to express His disposition, primarily through chastisement and judgment. Using this as the foundation, He brings more truth to man, shows more ways of practice, and so achieves His objective of conquering man and saving man from his corrupt disposition. This is what lies behind the work of God in the Age of Kingdom” (“Preface”). “Through this work of judgment and chastisement, man will fully come to know the filthy and corrupt substance within him, and he will be able to completely change and become clean. Only in this way can man be worthy to return before the throne of God. All the work done this day is so that man can be made clean and be changed; through judgment and chastisement by the word, as well as refinement, man can cast away his corruption and be made pure. Rather than deeming this stage of work to be that of salvation, it would be more apt to say it is the work of purification. In truth, this stage is that of conquest as well as the second stage of salvation” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)”. Brothers and sisters shared with me: “In the past, in believing in God, we only knew how to enjoy God’s grace and blessing but didn’t gain true knowledge of Him. Today, God does the work of judgment and chastisement and brings higher truth. Through reading God’s word and experiencing His work, we get some knowledge of God’s disposition and see that God not only has the disposition of mercy and love but also has the disposition of righteousness, majesty and wrath. At the same time, we also know that which kinds of people God loves as well as the kinds He loathes and know how we should do so that we can be in line with God’s will and that only when we gain the knowledge of God can we revere God and shun evil. Besides, God’s words also have revealed the truth of man’s corruption by Satan: Satan uses various heretical fallacies, knowledge and evil trends to deceive and corrupt man so that man becomes barely human and all lives in sin, struggling bitterly and being powerless to break away from it. Today, as long as we understand the truth within God’s word we can distinguish the ways that Satan corrupts mankind and can have a knowledge of the truth of our corruption by Satan so that we can hate Satan and are willing to forsake our flesh and put the truth into practice. Only by this way can our corrupt disposition be purified and can we live freely and without restraints.” The sisters also shared with me some gain and paths of their experiencing God’s work. After hearing their sharing, I felt that the process of God saving mankind is too practical and too real. I remembered that I had believed in the Lord for forty years and that I often prayed to the Lord, confessed my sins and repented, yet my hate within for that woman and my hatred for and mistrust of my husband couldn’t be resolved. Thank God. Now I have the path of practice and understand that the work God does today is the work of judgment by the word. What I can do at present is read more God’s word, know God, understand His will in His word, and at the same time, focus on accepting the judgment and punishment of God’s word and examining myself in His word, and then practice the truth in daily life.

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Later, I read a passage of God’s word:“People harbor many illusions about marriage before they experience it themselves, and all these illusions are beautiful. Women imagine that their other halves will be Prince Charming, and men imagine that they will marry Snow White. These fantasies go to show that every person has certain requirements for marriage, their own set of demands and standards. Though in this evil age people are constantly bombarded with distorted messages about marriage, which create even more additional requirements and give people all sorts of baggage and strange attitudes, any person who has experienced marriage knows that no matter how one understands it, no matter what one’s attitude toward it is, marriage is not a matter of individual choice” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). God’s word is too practical. In my opinion, I thought marriage was holy and unblemished. Because I pursued the perfect marriage, I demanded that my husband should also regard the marriage with absolute loyalty and respect; because I had my own set of demands and standards of marriage, when my family was destroyed and my husband was possessed by others, my heart felt as if it were emptied and I was living like a zombie. I thought it was the greatest disgrace in my life. I even couldn’t bear or forgive my husband’s momentary fault, developing the hate for him in my heart. Even more terrible was that I developed the thought of taking revenge on that woman, which let me see that I am really narrow-minded and evil in nature. Thank God. If not for God’s revelation, I would have never realized how deeply I had been corrupted by Satan or how pity I was. I thought: In reality, my husband, who is the same as me, is a man corrupted by Satan and is one of the victims. I can make mistakes, and he also can make mistakes. Why can I not treat him correctly? At that moment, I could understand my husband a bit and also had some sense of indebtedness in my heart. I established a resolution before God: I’m willing to follow Christ’s example. I have seen how Christ loves, bears, tolerates and forgives us. So I should treat him the way God treats us, and forgive him as God forgives us.

Later, through reading God’s word, I understood that only by seeking the truth could I get rid of the bondage and control of sin and live out a valuable and meaningful life. Hence, every day I paid attention to establishing a proper relationship with God by reading God’s word, praying to God and singing hymns to praise God, and moreover, I often attended gatherings and performed duty with my brothers and sisters. Unknowingly, several months passed, because I had understood some truths, when I hated my husband within again, I would consciously calm my heart down, come before God, pray to Him, and then practice His word. Gradually, my mood improved and my temper also became not so temperamental. Seeing my changes, my husband felt very surprised and said: “In believing in the Lord for so many years, you haven’t had any change. How can you change so much in a few months?” Taking this opportunity, I bore witness to Almighty God’s work of the last days to him and told him that the Lord Jesus has returned and has expressed words, doing the work of judgment and chastisement. That I could have changes today was the outcome of the word of Almighty God in me. Later, my husband also accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days.

Now I believe in God with my husband. As long as we are free, we will read God’s word together. In our life, when we see each other’s display of corruption, we will remind each other and fellowship about the truth to solve the problems. Today, we can help and understand each other and become good spiritual partners. I have felt that this is the real happy life. It is the truths expressed by God that take me out of sin, cure the wound of my soul and also allow my lifeless family to have laughter again. Thank God! All the glory be to Almighty God on the throne!

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