Through the Visible Life of Sacrifice

I grew up in the countryside. With very little to rely on, my parents worked tirelessly to raise four children, taking on every odd job imaginable and participating in pumasi—the mutual labor-exchange tradition in our village.

In the summer, my father would rise at three or four in the morning to tend the rice paddies, weeding and maintaining the irrigation channels, sometimes staying up through the night to ensure the water flowed properly. In the winter, he woke at the same hour to stoke the stove and warm the floor so that we could sleep without shivering. Before the cold months arrived, he gathered firewood whenever he had a spare moment, stacking towering piles that would last us through the season.

As a child, I believed my father never slept. No—more precisely, I assumed he had no need to. Only later did I realize that he was not sleepless by nature but by necessity; he simply pushed aside his exhaustion and carried on with his work.

On scorching summer days, when my father returned from the rice fields, my sister and I would help wash his back. His bare skin was covered with hundreds of blisters, raised and burned by the sun as he bent over to weed and drain the paddies. Even a single blister would have caused sharp pain—yet he endured hundreds without showing the slightest sign of discomfort.

In the scorching heat of summer, my father toiled in the rice paddies and fields; in the bitter cold of winter, he went from house to house taking part in pumasi, with hardly a moment to warm himself. Watching him live such a grueling life made my heart ache. By the time I reached middle school, I often found myself worrying about him even while sitting in class. On bright, sunny days, I would think, “He’s probably still out there working . . .” and in winter, “He must be freezing.” No matter the season, I could never set my worries aside.

At times, when the hardships of Heavenly Father feel distant or difficult to grasp, I think of my own father, who devoted himself to raising four children. Even he experienced trials, struggles, and sorrow—so how much greater must the suffering of our Heavenly Father have been as He carried the weight of His children’s sins? The depth of His sacrifice is beyond comprehension.

It seems that unless we witness something with our own eyes, we struggle to truly grasp the depth of its sacrifice in our hearts. I once watched a video in which children finally understood their father’s devotion only after seeing him at work. Why must we always rely on sight to recognize genuine sacrifice? How childlike we are.

Through observing my own father, I have come to understand—even if only in part—the unseen sacrifices of our Heavenly Father, who quietly walked the path of suffering for His children. Today, my longing for Him is stronger than ever.