Annie, Australia, Age 63
I thank God that 34 yrs. ago God, whom I know now as the Lord Jesus Christ, touched me and answered my call, which changed my life completely by making me His disciple. By many merciful touches HE had been calling me to Himself, but I never heeded to His call until He made me desperate. When I cried unto Him in my distress, He heard me. It happened like this:
In 1966, I returned from the U.K. ( having done 4 yrs of nurse’s training) to my little hometown, Kharagpur, in West Bengal, India, in disgrace. I had shoplifted in London and was caught. I was expelled from the hospital and sent home to my parents in India and did not complete my nurse’s training.
After this I met Peter, an Australian Agriculturist and a Christian, through my parents. Pete worked on a farm owned by a rich Indian, Hindu man. We lived in a nearby village under a straw roof in a one room brick home. Later, after 6 months of courting we decided to get married. My dad was greatly disappointed at my choice of a foreigner and refused to come to our marriage at the Anglican church. As I come from a respectful medical family, he had lined up a few young doctors to choose from. However, I ignored them only to have my dream come true that I would marry a white man.
God first touched me when on my marriage day my father refused to give me away to Peter and had not come to the church. So, I cried out to God in my heart to please bring my dad to the church and to give me away. Almost immediately my dad arrived and silently walked me up to the altar stairs and gave me away.
During the two years there we were constantly visited by Pentecostal Christians, under Bro. Cox, who I knew as a child to be a very godly man. In my hometown, he was known as a “religious fanatic”. They came to have fellowship with Peter and encouraged me to believe in Jesus and say the sinners’ prayer. As the pressure was on me, I despised them, their interference in my life, their prayers for me and their constant presence in our home. I detested them so much that I wanted us both to get away from them.
This led to us leaving India. With no money (as we were not allowed to take any Indian currency out of India) we arrived in Perth, Western Australia, and lived with Peter’s Christian friends for awhile. We continued a few years, meeting many Christians of different denominations and visiting various interdenominational Christian groups. I even got involved in playing the piano in some of the churches.
However, as I did not flow in with the Christians, my heart rejected their company, and I got very restless and distressed. I became so unhappy that I decided to commit suicide. We had three girls at that time, and one night I planned to sit outside in the porch and work out how to end my life.
I challenged God. Firstly, if He was real and true to His Word that He was a “Saviour” I challenged Him to save me from committing suicide before midnight. Then I cried bitterly, sobbing at the misery I was in. Peter had gone to bed with the kiddies as he had seen me in these moods before and had always tried to give me hope that God will draw me near to Him.
I finally dozed off on the chair and what follows was in my dream:
I was in my dad’s operation theatre sterilizing the instruments before the patient was wheeled in. Suddenly a clear, audible voice spoke to me saying “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the world”.
At this moment I awoke, trembling and fearful, wondering who had spoken to me. Having looked around and seeing no one, not even Pete, I wanted the words said to me again, and this was repeated to me in my mind very clearly as I was awake. I knew then that I had experienced a miracle and went inside to our bedroom to awaken Peter. I asked him to show me in the Bible if there were such words as these that had been spoken to me. He showed it to me in Matthew 28:20. I was so amazed and stunned and told Pete with a joy unspeakable that God spoke these very words to me as I was contemplating on committing suicide.
What followed after was also amazing as I received the gift of repentance and wept tears of joy just accepting God’s forgiveness through His death on the cross for me. I repented of all my sins before God and Peter that I had hidden deep down in my heart. I told him the truth that I was not a qualified nurse.
What a relief to be set free from guilt, shame, condemnation and carnal fear. The tears of joy just flowed down from the revelation that Jesus paid the penalty for all of my sins, even the sin which I hid from Pete. The slate was clean now, I had the robe of righteousness, I was made whiter than snow and Jesus was truly my God and Saviour.
He just blessed me so much and still showers of blessing is being poured on us. Jesus gave me the desires of my heart as I asked him for 7 sons, as I liked the story of Job so much, and we already had three daughters. They were all born at home with no doctor or midwife to help. Only Jesus gave us the Word to believe, and Peter helped in the birth.
As a born again Christian, my first witness was an Italian Catholic nurse who, after a year later, became a born again Christian, having heard my testimony of Jesus in my life. All praise and Glory be to God, to Jesus my Saviour, my Father and Redeemer, my Lord and King.