A Heart for Freedom (39 page)

Reggie explained how God had prepared her for her current work. In addition to law school, she had spent three years in divinity school, learning how to study and interpret the Bible. When she finished, she was good at analyzing and making arguments about this or that point, and she thought she knew God; but she did not truly know him or experience his presence until the moment when she thought she was dying. Then she prayed for God to save her, and he did. Out of her near-death experience was birthed a love for the women of China who were suffering forced abortions. She believed God had given her a vision for exposing this massive crime.

As she was speaking, I gained some clarity, and my heart was filled with a warm desire. I blurted, “If only I could bring God’s love to China! All the tragedy could come to an end and what a wonderful place the world would be . . .”

“That’s it! Write it down,” Reggie said. “Bring God’s love to China—that’s his plan for you, a job he has prepared for you that only you can accomplish, in a way no one else can.”

“Wow, that’s a huge job. Where do I even begin?” As I remembered the moment I committed to the Tiananmen movement and all the pain and sacrifice that followed, I asked, “Will I have to endure the pain of losing all my loved ones again?”

“God gives us tasks we can handle,” Reggie replied. “When he sees we cannot do it, he will use us in a different way. Like the story of Corrie Ten Boom, who was brave and effective in hiding Jews during World War II. After she was released from the concentration camp and lost so many of her family members, she realized she could no longer go back to save the Jews. God used her after the war to work on reconciliation.”

“But what about my children? Would I have to love Jesus before them?”

“Yes, but he’s gentle. Even though Jesus was sent to earth to accomplish God’s plan, he did not start his ministry until he was over thirty and had fulfilled his duty to raise his other siblings. Chai Ling, Jesus will treat those with young ones gently.”

At the end of our conversation, Reggie said, “Chai Ling, remember, if you commit to Jesus, he will treasure your commitment. Because of what you’ve been through, the pain you’ve endured, Jesus will know how seriously you have taken this commitment and what you are prepared to do for him. He will dearly cherish your coming to him because you know what it’s like to be persecuted and yet you are still willing to commit.”

Tears welled in my eyes as I hung up the phone. There is nothing that can describe the feeling of being embraced and understood. In my office on the thirty-fifth floor of the Prudential Building, I got up from my desk, walked to a corner behind the door, and fell to my knees. All my life, I felt I was made to try to help save China. I had tried so hard to do it on my own and gave everything I had for what I believed was right. But I had not succeeded—and my sincere efforts, sacrifice, and devotion were twisted and made to seem evil and self-serving. Yet Jesus would know me and cherish my commitment. I was deeply touched to the core. Looking up, I said, “All my life I have wanted to save China. But I can’t do it. If you can, Jesus, I will give my life to you.”

* * *

A few days after my decision to become a Jesus-follower, God performed a miracle that reinforced my commitment. Jing Zhang’s organization, Women’s Rights in China, which Bob and I support, had reunited a young woman with her family twenty-five years after she was kidnapped at age seven. When the news came, the entire village, which had witnessed the parents’ years of tears and heartbreak, rushed to the train station to greet the lost daughter.

On top of that, Jing, who had been instrumental in supporting the network that rescued the lost girl, was reconciled with her own family. For many years, because of her passion to fight for justice and freedom for China, she had been viewed as the black sheep in her family—especially when she’d been thrown in jail. But the joyful news of her great deed made her family proud, and they embraced her and welcomed her back into the family.

Zhou Fengsuo, who had prayed for me on the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre and whose courage to bring Fang Zheng to the United States started the process that led me to Jesus, told me that when he walked out of his office after hearing about my conversion, the ground was covered with snow—which had not happened in his city in California in thirty years.

When one of my daughters started having nightmares that kept her awake at night, Reggie explained to me the battle in the spirit world, where Satan constantly opposes Christ, and she encouraged me to pray for God’s protection for my family.

Then my dad went in for a regular checkup, and it was discovered he had leukemia. Had he not gone in for the test, it might have been too late to treat the disease. After we prayed for him, he learned he had the kind of leukemia that is curable. My sister, whose focus is to find a cure for children’s leukemia, could not believe it. She was so sure Dad would have the lethal kind. But God blessed our family with a miracle.

* * *

Looking back, I realize how often Bob had tried to witness to me about Jesus. He had taken me to various churches, from the historic Christ Church Cambridge, where George and Martha Washington had worshiped, to the landmark Trinity Church of Boston, to a Catholic church on Cape Cod. He took our girls to Sunday school, put them in the Christmas pageants and church Easter egg hunts, and in the summer sent them to vacation Bible school and a Christian sports/cheerleading camp. But he never pushed me. He was grateful I didn’t object to his bringing up the girls in the Christian faith. Later he confessed that he’d tried the soft-sell approach with me and feared a confrontation in which I might object to our daughters being raised to believe in Jesus.

Little did he know that what I needed was a baseball bat over the head—like throwing
The Heavenly Man
at me and then asking me whether I was ready to give my life to Jesus. I needed to see faith that people were willing to give their lives for, the kind of faith I had seen in the people who had risked their lives to save me in China.

During the years I walked in darkness, Bob was patient, kind, loving, and generous—a shining example of God’s love. At the time, I thought he represented the best of the American spirit. Now I know he was reflecting the spirit of Jesus. It was Bob’s patience, goodness, and faithfulness that helped to heal me.

My decision to put my faith in Jesus reinvigorated Bob’s faith as well. He told me about sitting alone in the giant sanctuary of Trinity Church in the fall of 2009, looking around at others who had their entire families with them and wondering where was the God who would transform my life. Within months, God had answered in a mighty way. We are now surrounded by a wonderful church community and loving brothers and sisters in Christ. What a blessed way to live. And to think I missed the love of God for so many years.

34

All Girls Allowed

A few hours before I came to Jesus, I finished reading a memoir about coming to America by fellow Tiananmen survivor Su Xiaokang. In 1993 Su and his family were involved in a serious car accident in New York, and his wife sustained a brain injury that kept her hospitalized for an extended time. When Su visited her in the hospital, she talked about an “elder brother” and “the little one” who came to see her at night. It turned out she was having visions of her son’s twin, who had died in childbirth, and a third child, whom she had aborted.

Eventually, as her recovery continued and she became firmly anchored in the real world again, the two dead children stopped visiting her. When I read that part, I was shaken to the core.
Does that mean I may have four children who are alive in a different world?

In March 2010, Reggie and I met again in Boston. She was in town to visit her son at Harvard, and I took her to the launch party for Bob’s friend and former boss Mitt Romney’s book
No Apology
. There we met Romney’s adviser Peter Flaherty, whose brother, Mike, is an amazing film producer. I was hoping to get Reggie’s screenplay into Mike’s hands.

The next day, Peter called to say that his brother happened to be in town and could meet us. It turned out to be a powerful meeting. Mike told us he was deeply moved by the Tiananmen students in 1989 and had put a white shoelace on his father’s car antenna, vowing not to take it down until China was free. Unfortunately, Communist China outlasted his father’s car.

During the meeting, Reggie told us about a Chinese girl she’d met who had come to the United States to study. This girl had learned that her mother had had an abortion to avoid a huge fine that would have made it impossible for the girl to get an education. It had finally dawned on the girl that her baby brother’s life had paid for her education.

In the car after the meeting, as Reggie and I continued to talk about her work to end China’s forced abortions, I suddenly blurted out that I’d had four abortions. Reggie looked at me and said, “Did you confess to God? He will forgive you.”

“I did,” I said, fighting back tears. We parted ways and I regained my composure on my way to another appointment. I had learned over the years to put aside any strong emotions I couldn’t deal with and keep moving on. But that night the pain of the past came back, and I was in deep turmoil.

The next morning was a Saturday, and Bob was busy getting the kids ready to go to Cape Cod for a charity event. Before we left, I could not hold it in any longer. “I need to speak to you,” I said.

We went into the living room, and as Bob sat down on the opposite side of the sofa, I told him I’d had abortions before marrying him.

“So I was right,” he said, contemplating his words. “When I first met you, I asked whether you had children in China and told you I would be glad to adopt them. You said no. But I sensed you did.”

“How would I ever have known they were children?” I said as the tears began to flow. I wrapped my arms tightly across my chest, not knowing what kind of response to expect. “So, do you still love me?”

“Of course I still love you,” he said, almost casually.

All the years of pain, shame, and suffering erupted. I could have had four additional children, and they would all be in their twenties now. Four children . . .

“Would you hold me, please?” I managed to choke out. Bob moved to embrace me.

I could not stop sobbing, and I don’t think Bob knew quite what to do. At one point I went to the bathroom to get some tissue. When I returned, he had left the sofa. I found him at the dining room table, finishing an e-mail to the board before our trip to Cape Cod. Eventually my young children heard me crying and rushed to my aid and just hugged and hugged me.

* * *

On the ride to the cape, my heart burned with anguish. How had I allowed myself to lose four babies?

When I confessed my sin to God, I felt some peace about the time in Paris; but when I thought about the circumstances of the other three, I only felt anger—toward my dad, Qing’s dad, and Feng. What could have been done differently? I thought of two immigrant couples I know who aborted their babies in America due to financial insecurity and health concerns. One of the couples, during their time of crisis, was approached by some Christians, but they seemed only concerned about getting my friends to go to church and tithe.

The pain did not begin to subside until that evening. Even though my husband and children still loved me, I felt such turmoil; I felt alone and vulnerable. I felt I had nowhere to turn for help.

On Monday, when I met with my spiritual mentor, Tammy, she told me Bob should have canceled the trip to Cape Cod and given me time to grieve. “The right thing to do was to let you cry and cry until you had cried enough,” she said. When I related this message to Bob, he laughed and said, “It would be great to be given an instruction manual next time.”

I also realized I had felt judged by Reggie when she told me to confess to God and
he
would forgive me. There was nothing wrong with what she said, except I felt a slight tone of judgment instead of compassion. It’s not like women in China skip happily to the abortion clinic.

When I saw Reggie again before she left town, I told her how I felt and suggested that the Chinese women she and other Americans spoke to in their ministry would need extra care and tenderness. “I would hate to see them hurt again, or turned away again, in the name of God.”

Reggie agreed and said, “Ling, I don’t think you even realize that your first three abortions were forced abortions.”

She was right. The law in China, both then and now, was that a woman could not legally give birth without a birth permit, and permits were not issued to unmarried women or to any woman under twenty-five years old. According to Chinese government statistics for 2009 and 2010, 70 percent of the 16 million abortions each year—that’s 11.2 million women and children affected—are for unmarried women. Many of them are driven into the clinics by subtle—yet no less lethal—shame and family and social pressure, not by overt physical attacks such as Wujian endured. These women may not even realize they are also victims of the one-child policy. But God has seen them and heard them, and he has a special message for them.

As I pondered my own deep sadness—and the pain of millions of other Chinese woman and girls—I said to Reggie, “For the Chinese women who will someday come out of their trauma, what they need to hear
first
is not, ‘Come to God; he will forgive you,’ but, ‘Come to God, he will love you, heal you, and free you.’”

* * *

In April 2010, I went to Midland, Texas, to visit Bob Fu at the ChinaAid Association, a ministry that supports and defends the persecuted church in China. I liked their ministry so much that I offered to help Bob establish a subgroup to focus on ending forced abortions.