This is written by a Navigator who, because of their ministry context, prefers to remain anonymous for now. 

As I reflect on my life so far, I ask myself, ‘If my life had been perfect, would I have found Jesus?’

Escape routes

I grew up in a Hindu family, where life’s problems were dealt with by either committing oneself to rituals and fasting, in order to barter for a god’s blessing, or by drinking and gambling as an escape. The reality was that neither of these things was able to deal with the problems. 

I sought any excuse to leave my difficult family home. I went to university to search for a fresh start. Whilst this led me to the man I eventually married, it only pushed away an issue of brokenness that I couldn’t deal with and led to more things to wrestle with.  

My brother’s freedom

In contrast to my attempts at working hard to escape what I had experienced, my brother had come to a different conclusion. His journey at university had led him to people who loved him and cared for him without requiring anything of him. 

He found a family – not a human one but that of Jesus – who had the capacity to love and care for people. He quickly came to realise that this was due to their relationship with God through Jesus, which, coming from a Hindu home, couldn’t have been more alien. 

Through time with him, and even from afar, I got to experience his relationship with God. I saw his compassionate heart toward others and the strength of relationship he had with his newfound family. He had a new contentment and certainty about life and the world. He was free to live in a way I hadn’t been able to experience for myself.  

My journey of fear and hope

Yet it was only when the pandemic hit and I faced fears of death for myself and loved ones as we worked on the frontline, that I really began to explore this hope for myself…

After struggling to sleep one day I felt compelled to find the Bible my brother had given me a long time before. As I picked up the Bible, pamphlets and tracts came raining down over me from where they had been tucked. This image is so vivid in my mind. I knew in that moment that God was wanting to speak to me. Sitting down I opened it up and started reading.

Over the next little while, as I explored with an online group the evidence for Jesus and got to know God’s unconditional love for me, I began to find that source of peace and hope that my brother had found and that I had glimpsed through him and his friends.

Getting alongside our family

Now that I too have a relationship with God, alongside my brother, we long to see our family free to experience the same hope and love. We face many challenges and questions as we seek to be alongsiders inside our family.

Our mother believes in the life and death cycle of reincarnation but longs for liberation from it. We pray that she can know the certainty of the hope we have through Jesus of eternal life.

We encounter many traditional Hindu practices at weddings and funerals and we long to walk with integrity and still love our family well. As we ask these questions openly with those who come alongside us, we have been reminded that God loves our family too, and as we ask him for guidance in these things, he will help us love our family well and through that show them his love. Choosing to not go to church some Sundays in order to spend time with my husband and daughter, who don’t yet share the same faith as me, is one way of doing that.

All I need to know

As I walk through life with God and still face death in the world around me, like Jairus in Mark 5:36 I am reminded to not be afraid but to believe. 

I believe that Jesus is the one who holds life and death in his hands and that my life and those I am seeking to be alongside are in his hands too. 

I don’t need to know everything; all I need to know is him.