Heartbreaking cries came from the little Chinese girl, as the stick came down again and again on her back.
“Didn’t I tell you to sweep the courtyard and gather sticks for the fire? You’ve been playing around instead, you good-for-nothing brat! You’re not worth the rice I feed you,” screamed the harsh woman.
The five-year-old child stood trembling, big tears rolling down her cheeks. Her black eyes looked large in her thin face. Thick black hair hung in tangles down her back. Her ragged clothes were torn, and her tiny arms looked like twigs.
Five long years before, a tiny child wrapped in rags had been put in the Chinese woman’s arms. “We don’t want her,” a voice had said in the darkness. “Sell her or do whatever you want with her.” Mrs. Chou had an illegal business selling unwanted children as slaves to rich people, who paid her well.
And now, five years later, this child’s life was one of complete misery. It reminds me of what life is like for many who don’t know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. Whether they know it or not, they live as slaves of a cruel master—Satan. He has no love for any of them and only uses them for what he can get out of them. Thankfully for the little girl, her life with this cruel woman was about to change.
A knock was heard at the door. Peeking through the door at the wall of the compound where she lived, Mrs. Chou saw foreigners, a man and a woman, and she suspected they had come to spy on her for the government. But the man called out, “We are your friends; we have come to do you no harm.”
When Mrs. Chou let them in, she was shocked to hear the woman say, “We have heard that you have several unwanted children here. Would you be willing to let us have one of them? You see, I have no children of my own, and I want to raise a little girl as my own daughter.”
Mrs. Chou led them through the pigs and chickens to the back of the house. By the dim light of an oil lamp, they could see several small children huddled together in a big room that was filled with an awful smell and the shrieks of small babies. The lady gasped in horror! How could anyone live in such a terrible place? she wondered.
She looked around, and then she saw her ... a tiny, ragged girl whose eyes were still red from crying from her beating and her face covered with oozing sores.
“Oh, no! You don’t want that one,” Mrs. Chou told her. “She’s a thief and a wildcat ... now this one ... .” But the lady broke in: “Yes, I want her. She looks like she needs a mother more than all the others. How much do you want for her?”
“A silver dollar. That will pay for the rice and bean curd she has eaten.”
As the little girl looked at the missionaries, her eyes filled with terror. She had heard that these “foreign devils” took Chinese children to their homes to take their eyes out to make medicine with them. As Mrs. Chou pushed her toward them, she began to shriek, “NO! NO, I DON’T WANT TO GO!” She threw herself on the ground and began to kick as hard as she could. When she had settled down a little, the lady leaned down and spoke gently to her. “We won’t hurt you. We want to be good to you and love you. Won’t you please come with us?”
Silly child, we might think. Who wouldn’t want to go with someone who was speaking kindly to them, rather than stay in such filthy, cruel misery? This little girl had no idea of what love and kindness were, and she clung, strangely enough, to the horrible life she knew.
I wonder if anyone reading this is like this little girl. Has Satan filled your heart with fear of what life might be like if you were to accept the Lord Jesus as your Saviour and follow Him? Satan likes to tell people they will be slaves—no freedom, no happiness and many other lies. Satan is a liar and the father of lies! Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep” (John 10:10-1110The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 11I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. (John 10:10‑11)). Jesus always tells the truth. God is pleading for you to listen to Him and to turn away from Satan’s lies. How could God want anything but good for us after loving us so much that He gave His Son to die for us?
Little Chen Li, the name her new parents gave her, was forced by Mrs. Chou to go with the foreigners. What the little girl found waiting for her were many wonderful things—a clean home, clean clothes, good food and best of all, a father and mother to love her. It took time, but all the love and kindness eventually made her fear disappear, and in its place was a heart full of love for her father and mother.
Chen Li was bought for only a dollar. Do you know that the largest possible ransom has been paid to buy you? God has paid for sinners with the blood of His own Son! Chen Li could not understand the love of her new parents at first. They bought her to give her love and to make her clean and happy. That is exactly what God wants to do for you ... to cleanse you from your sins, fill your heart with joy and give you the peace of knowing you are loved by God your Father. He also promises a future home in heaven. This can all be yours because of the price His Son Jesus paid to redeem you. “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:77In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; (Ephesians 1:7)).
ML-02/21/2010