Moving (Pt.14)

The guesthouse was in Hospitalet de Llobregat, near the Collblanc metro. Since the host’s directions didn’t match Google Maps, I took the wrong exit and walked quite a detour.

I was exhausted, looking rather pitiful, stopping and starting under the scorching midday sun. Passing through the commercial street, a small park, rows of tidy houses, I gradually noticed the surrounding noise fading into quiet.

When I arrived, a frail old lady in a floral dress warmly opened the door for me.

I felt an unprecedented sense of cleanliness.

The small suite was simple, modest, like a snow hut. In the living room, the drying rack carried bedsheets and pillowcases, faintly fragrant with freshness.

At last, I put down my luggage, sat to rest, and began chatting with the lady. She was in her sixties, had come to Barcelona alone two years ago, spoke neither Spanish nor English, had been scammed and extorted by other Chinese, and her Rednote account often got maliciously reported.

That was why she had sent me her WeChat ID in such a cryptic, riddle-like way.

She also didn’t use map apps or know the bus system well, relying only on memory to give me directions.

Suddenly, she asked, “You said you write—what do you write about?”

“Oh, I’m a Christian. I write about faith.”

I hadn’t expected her to care about such a topic. But upon hearing this, she lit up with joy:

“Ah! Then we’re kindred spirits. I’m a Christian too!”

From that moment, she became a small sign from God for me—when I was being driven out, left unprotected and alone, the Lord still prepared for me a host who had faith, humanity, and a listening heart.

We talked at length. When we spoke of the Cultural Revolution, we both choked up. I had studied church history and often wept over it, yet rarely met believers in real life who resonated with that sorrow. But she came from three generations of Christians; the history I had read was the glory and suffering her own family lived through.

My faith was strengthened—I knew I was under God’s personal care.

Now, I could finally focus on moving out of my old place once and for all.

Back in Sant Martí, from afar I saw the landlord uncle outside his bar. When he spotted me, he stubbed out his cigarette. Clearly, he had been waiting.

He stopped me, chin raised, frowning: “What did you say to my wife this morning? You dare ask us for compensation? … We’ve already been more than generous with you, endured things we didn’t even bother to mention.”

He rambled on. I managed to cut him off and stated directly the amount I required for deposit and remaining rent, saying nothing more.

He looked surprised, hesitated, then said: “Alright.”

We agreed on 5 p.m. for checkout. I went back, napped a bit, packed the rest of my belongings. By the time the landlady came to check the room, it was spotless, just as before.

She kept her disdainful attitude. Entering, she first lifted the bed cover, checking whether I had stolen the sheet hidden beneath.

I sent her my Bizum account, but she scoffed: “Hmph, no way I’ll send Bizum. I’ll give you cash at the shop.”

Yet when I was about to leave, she suddenly sat in the living room, as if forgetting her words, and proceeded to refund me there.

“Don’t worry, the camera records everything—you can’t lose your receipt.” I handed her the receipt. She wrote a refund note for me to sign, then counted the cash.

It was the simplest math, yet she still used a calculator. Pressing the wrong button, she ended up with an extra 0.01.

I pointed it out. She answered with scorn: “That’s how it should be. Not a cent less for you.”

“Alright then.” The so-called moral high ground over a single cent made me chuckle.

I checked the money, pocketed it, shouldered my bags, and walked out of my first long-term lodging abroad. The battle was over.

As the elevator descended slowly, relief washed over me, tinged with regret. I bid farewell to the familiar streets, step by step, as though walking out of Egypt.

By evening, the landlady was back at the guesthouse awaiting another guest’s arrival.

We conversed extensively. She said I amazed her, that people like me were rare, and insisted on refunding me the accommodation fee.

Lida, ten years older than me, had once said my mental age exceeded my real age by ten years; the previous landlord, in his fifties, had praised my mindset was fifty-something. But only this 60-year-old Christian lady said my thoughts had the depth of someone seventy or eighty.

It was the first time an elder had broken that invisible “order of seniority” in front of me.

“I know some history, and being from three Christian generations I can slightly resonate with you—but onlyslightly.”

“I feel you are on the way to fully devoting yourself, so I must advise you: take things lightly, don’t lock horns with others. Because over 90% of people in this world truly cannot reach your level. Just follow your heart; don’t measure by the world.”

Her humility and blessing were far more precious than three days of lodging fees.

I deleted the complaints I had drafted. Suddenly, all that bargaining and clinging seemed unnecessary. My eviction was simply God’s way of leading me out.

Yet I still held a knot about that landlord couple’s hostility toward me. Not hatred—but self-doubt.

I can’t call them evil, but their disgust for me was real. I couldn’t pinpoint what I had done to offend them, yet I couldn’t say I was blameless either.

I could even understand why they disliked me—for even I disliked the version of myself living there: weak, numb, incapable of choosing, truly unworthy of better people or circumstances.

Still, I knew it was growth I had to go through; there was no other way.

That night, before bed, I knelt to pray—asking the Lord to heal my wounds and praying also for the couple. In that moment, they seemed to drift away—along with my old self. The reflections and self-examinations of the past twenty days shed off, leaving me renewed.

And this present shelter was the Lord’s “little tent in the pillar of cloud and fire.”

All things were made new.

Those two days, I went each morning to the café opposite Sant Ramon de Collblanc, buying breakfast, eating slowly outside, listening to others chat leisurely as the street grew busy.

It was the first proper breakfast in all my long “temporary life.”

Afterwards I went to pray at Sant Ramon de Collblanc. History stood quietly in the dim light, and I gazed long at the great fresco of the Trinity—

the hand behind the trajectory of my life.

Lord, is it true that if I only focus inward—when my self-examination and renewal reach a critical point—you will personally open doors and grant me a new environment that matches?

Before, I hesitated to judge others or assume ill intent, which left me unable to reconcile my own experiences. My trauma response was born of not knowing how to turn external chaos into divine order—so I instinctively defended myself.

But now I no longer need to define myself by how others treat me, nor puzzle over why they acted as they did. I need not seek accountability from people for my destiny.

For they hold no authority.

I need only trust that You orchestrate from behind the scenes—using people to push me toward Your next station.

At last, I am free. I can fix my eyes on the road You set before me, and run straight toward the goal.