Ruby’s Mom and the Lotus Flower

Most days I'm immersed with life in Dallas.  Diapers, dinners, church, friends, chores.  But some days, like today, my mind is back in China.

One of the most beautiful people I met during the year we lived in China was my student Ruby’s mother.  

One weekend Josh and I traveled with Ruby and two other girls to a very small community in Jiang Xi province in Southern China, only a couple of hours by train from Nanchang, where we lived.  We were going there to meet Ruby’s family.  

We took a non-air-conditioned train to the nearby town and then hopped on a rickety bus that took us from the train station far out into the middle of some rice fields.  The bus let us off at the end of a long, straight dirt road that stretched as far as we could see through green rice fields.  

Ruby’s high school aged brother was waiting for us there when the bus dropped us off.  He shyly said “hello” and tried out his English on Josh and me as he led us down the road toward a small gathering of houses we could see in the distance.

Ruby’s village was one of the smallest and poorest I had ever seen.  There were maybe 10 or 12 houses making up the village.  As we approached the houses we left the road and followed a path into the village.  There were no roads in-between houses, just pathways.  And that made sense, because few (if any) there owned a car...the majority of Chinese people travel by bicycle or motorcycle.  

We had to walk around several cows that were lazing in our pathway and we keenly watched our step...there was garbage and cow dung everywhere we looked.

As soon as we entered the village a group of about a dozen children came running up to us and followed us toward Ruby’s house.  We smiled and tried to interact, but they held back at first, shy.  They laughed and skipped behind us, whispering about us and giggling.  I felt vaguely like the pied piper. 

As we neared the back edge of the village, Ruby pointed out the cut stone house at the very end of the row.  That was her house, and her parents were waiting in the doorway.  

I knew already that this was no ordinary woman I was about to meet.  Ruby had confided in me several months earlier, with tears, that her mother is blind.   Several years before she had battled a brain tumor that left her with her life but stole her eyesight.

Blindness is never an easy thing, but in China her handicap is considered shameful.  When she first went blind Ruby’s father was very harsh with her.  He told her again and again that she was worthless, and Ruby’s mom believed him.  Several times she tried to end her life by swallowing pesticides.  

Thankfully, she failed!  A sweet Christian woman in the village took Ruby’s mother under her wing.  She helped her as she learned to live with her blindness and eventually introduced Ruby’s mom to Jesus!  She still visits her every day to check on her and see if she needs any help.  

God used Ruby’s mother’s blindness to show her how much she needed Him.  And another miracle had happened only weeks before we visited the family.  Ruby had run breathless from her dorm room to our apartment to tell us the news: her mother had led her husband, Ruby's dad, to Christ as well! 

I held Ruby’s mother’s hand with both of mine when Ruby introduced us, and she beamed.  Her hair was cut short for easy care, and her skin was rough from years of hard labor.  But her face was absolutely radiant.  Tears are pooling in my eyes as I type this.  I have rarely seen so much quiet joy in someone’s face as I did in Ruby’s mother’s face. 

We watched in awe as she helped her husband prepare our dinner.  She took a large, sharp knife and chopped raw chicken and vegetables with quickness and precision, like a gourmet chef.  She knew we were watching her, and she smiled with delight.  

There was no such thing as a gas or electric stove in this village.  After she finished chopping, Ruby’s mom took position by the woodpile and fed the fire and fanned it while her husband stir-fried our food.  I was scared for her as she threw log after log into the fire.  But she knew exactly what she was doing, and how much distance to keep from the flames.  She had her husband chattered away and laughed and joked in Chinese as they worked. Every once in a while Ruby would translate for us so we would know what they were saying.

At one point during our visit some of the children from the village picked me a huge pink lotus flower from the pond just outside Ruby’s parents’ house (and made us costumes from the leaves).  The flower was stunning.  

I so wanted to share the beauty of the flower with Ruby’s mom, so I took it to her and pressed it into her hands.  

She gently fingered the blossom and her face lit up like the sun.  She nodded and murmured a Chinese phrase I knew.  Piao liang.  Beautiful. 

It struck me then that Ruby’s mom was so much more beautiful than the lotus flower.  She is a breathtaking picture of how God can take a horrible situation and use it for His glory.  

I know every single day is still incredibly difficult for her.  Her son and daughter are far away in school.  Her husband, like most men from rural China, is a migrant worker constantly traveling from city to city trying to find work so he can bring a little money home for his family.  She is alone, and life is hard.  She still lives with a lot of heartache. 

But she has Jesus. 

She has met Him in her darkest hour, and anyone who meets her can see Him shining through her.  All I could do as I watched her was praise God.  She is blossoming despite – or perhaps because of – her pain.  God has seen her suffering, in that hidden little village in the middle of rice fields in Southern China, and He is using it for good.