THE EYE OF THE GREAT SOUL - A TRUE LIFE STORY (WONG YUNG)

I was conscious as Dr. Chou Taohsiang operated on my eye. I could hear the sound of the operating instruments and Dr. Chou speaking. My right eye had been in a bad condition for more than three years. I was almost blind. About a year later, I learned that only the transplantation of a cornea could get my sight back to normal. When I told my wife she said nothing, but showed me her savings book. She was illiterate, but from the book I knew with surprise that she had managed to save about 500 Taiwan dollars after several years of hard work. “If this is not enough, we'll try to get more,” she said. “You are not like me. An illiterate person is blind though he can see. A man who can read needs both eyes.” I informed Dr. Chou that I was ready to have a corneal operation. A month later, he phoned me and told me that there was a man who had just died. Before he died, the doctor said, the man had told his family that he would allow any part of his body to be transplanted to anyone who needed it. The following day I entered the hospital. I was extremely lucky. People waited for years before a cornea became available, and I told my wife how thankful I was to her for making the operation possible. After the operation, as I was wheeled out of the operating room, my daughter, Yung, put her lips close to my ear and said, “Everything went well. Mother wanted to come, but she was afraid.” “Tell her not to come,” I said, “But tell her I'm all right. She need not worry.” * * * I was 19 years old when I married by my parents' orders. In those days it was still customary that marriages were arranged merely by the parents; the children had to obey their orders absolutely. My father and my wife's father were close friends and had promised that if their wives gave birth to a boy and a girl, the children would be married. I had never seen the girl who was to be my wife until the very day she was brought to our house. She came with her face covered by a veil. After bowing to heaven and earth, we were led to the bridal bedroom. When at last I lifted the red brocade of her bridal veil, I received a great shock. Her face was much uglier than I had imagined. My dream broke to pieces. She looked like an old woman of 40, although she was still 18 years of age. I fled to my mother's room and cried all night. My mother told me that I must accept my fate. She praised my new wife as a kindhearted, hard-working girl. But nothing she said reduced my anger and disappointment. I did not want to share a room with that ugly wife, and I did not speak to her. I stayed at school. When the summer vacation came, I refused to go home until my father sent an uncle of mine to fetch me. My wife was cooking supper when I arrived, and she raised her head in a smile when she saw me. I walked right past her. After supper, my mother persuaded me to have a talk with her privately. “Son, you are being cruel to her,” she began. “Her face is unattractive, that's true, but she does not have an ugly heart.” “No, it must be beautiful,” I said angrily. “I wonder how you and father could have made me marry her.” My mother's face grew pale. “She is an extremely good girl, understanding and patient,” she continued. “She has been in this house more than six months now, and she works from morning to night in the kitchen and on the farm. She has not said a word of complaint about the way you have treated her. I have not seen her shed a tear. But she has a heart. “Do you want her to live like a widow although she has a husband? Imagine what you would feel if you were she!” Nothing changed the way I felt. She always kept her face down and spoke softly. When I dis-agreed with her, she would raise her head to show me that she was sorry and to try to give me a smile of obedience; then she would quickly lower her head again. In the thirty years of marriage that followed, I seldom smiled at my wife and we never went out together. In fact, I sometimes wished her dead. Yet my wife proved to have more patience and love than anyone I knew. My income was hardly enough for our daily life. The baby was often ill. When my wife was not looking after the household, she worked with some rich family or helped drag fishing nets with some fishermen to earn a little extra money. * * * After the operation, my daughter, Yung, brought me a transistor radio to occupy the long hours while the bandage remained on my right eye. But I had plenty of time to think, and my thoughts kept returning to my wife. I didn't want the people in the hospital to know that I had an ugly wife. Dr. Chou removed the bandage from my eye. I was afraid to open it. The physician said that the corneal operation was a success. “Mother is making your favourite dishes to welcome you home,” Yung said when she came to fetch me. “She is a good wife and a good mother,” I replied. These words I would never say before. Yung and I climbed into a taxi. She was strangely silent all the way home. As I walked into the house, my wife was coming from the kitchen with a plate of food. “You're back,” she said very softly, without raising her head. “Thank you for letting me see,” I said. She walked past me and put the food on the table, her head still bent down. Standing against the wall with her back towards me, she began to weep. “It is enough to hear you say this,” she said between sobs. Yung came into the room in tears. “Tell him, Mother!” she cried. “Let Father know that you gave the cornea for his eye!” She shook her mother. “Tell him!” “I only did what I should do,” my wife remarked. I grabbed her by the shoulders, and looked closely at her face. Her left eye was covered with a light-brown patch! “Why… why did you do it?” I cried, shaking her hard. “Because you are my husband,” she answered. I held her tight. Then I got down and knelt at her feet. - Native Missionary “Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:] Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, but stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being. And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8).