What a Wonderful Change, Mercy Huang

From my earliest age I grew up in a simple environment where everyone in my family loved the Lord. My parents brought each of us children to local church meetings with them. Every Lord's Day at the bread breaking meeting whenever I saw the bread and the wine that passed by me, I would eagerly long to grow up so that I could partake of them to remember the Lord with all the believers in the Lord. As time progressed, when I was in the 5^th grade I was baptized into the name of the Lord with some other companions from the children's meeting of the local church.

My family lived in school housing for staff and faculty. One of our neighbors was a music teacher. Every now and then the sound of beautiful music was heard from her house and that was very attractive to me. Very often I would imagine that one day I would be a famous musician exhibiting my talents on the stage. However because they had many children, my parents were not able to afford to give me special training so that I could really develop my talent in music. But, praise the Lord! When I was in the 5^th grade, a Christian sister spent two years helping me to establish a good foundation for playing piano. Since junior high, with the help of an elder Christian sister, I started to play the piano in the church meetings. Under the Lord's blessing, I passed the college entrance examination and was admitted into the Department of Music to pursue my dream. That marked my official entrance into the world of music, immersed a realm permeated with marvelous melody.

During that time I had a very demanding teacher, and I realized that I did not have a very strong background in music. This realization of my lack and weakness and the pushing of my strict instructors caused me to practice even harder. I was hoping that I would make much progress to please the professors and obtain praises from them. My senior school friends also encouraged me a lot. By this time, music had become my world. I was completely consumed with the thought of how I could meet the expectations of the professors and how I could improve my singing and piano skills and thus move a step forward in the music arena. In the midst of this, I did not realize that soon what things used to be gains to me I would count as loss (Philippians 3:7). One day I unexpectedly began stuttering, not being able to utter a complete sentence. What was in my heart that I wanted to express turned out to be mere broken fragmented phrases. My speech was incoherent. Anxiety, fear and restlessness filled my heart. I always dreamed of being a famous teacher one day. Yet now I could not even express myself in a normal way. As for my future, nothing was seen on the horizon. I fell into a hole of darkness and pain. Praise the Lord, something wonderful happened at this moment. A gentle small voice spoke to me from within, “My child, I'm here. Don't be afraid.” That word from the Lord entered into my heart as light shining through darkness. It not only comforted my restless heart, but also laid a firm grip on me like strong hands that led me through the endless dark nights.

This experience caused a big change in my life and I was no longer a naughty child. I changed from being a “Lot” who followed the Lord merely in an outward way and became an “Abraham” who experienced the Lord in a subjective way. The mighty and dreadful Lord who I knew as a child has now become so near, dear, lovely, and sweet to me. “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came to live in my heart”! (Hymns, #309) This hymn is now more than just a song to me. Because He, the Christ, came into my life, I have a different life. He is my real song of songs.