01.09. CHAPTER 09 - GROWING IN WISDOM

CHAPTER 09 - GROWING IN WISDOM I found a good Hindi-speaking church near the hospital.

It was a small congregation with some sincere Christians from the local area and the hospital. I disciplined myself to attend the meetings there regularly. By this time I had picked up enough Hindi to understand quite a bit of the sermons and even to sing some of the songs.

Although I still could not converse freely in Hindi, I found one or two good families in that church who bore with my poor language and who occasionally invited me over to their homes. I became a regular member of the church and found that I fitted in very well. Very soon I felt that I should obey the Lord in water-baptism.

I wrote home about my faith. But even Mummy ridiculed me. She wrote to me that she did not want me to become one of those "Hallelujah" types whom she despised. Many people in my hometown had had some bad experiences with pastors and Bible-women who went around visiting houses, praying long prayers, thrusting religion down people’s throats and pressurising people to give them money for "God’s work"!! I wished Mummy could see that I was different from them. I felt that only my life could speak to her and not my letters. My baptism was a great event for me. It was as exciting a day for me as the day when the Lord had brought me into His fold, some years earlier. But it also marked the beginning of a lot of persecution and opposition for me. I discovered that all who follow the Lord and live godly lives will suffer persecution.

I wanted to learn how to conduct myself with modesty and dignity as a child of God. I wanted the people with whom I worked to know that I belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ. The world and its attractions had very little interest for me, after my baptism.

I met a lot of good people in the church. I soon discovered in myself a desire to talk to men - even married men - both in the hospital and in the church. At times I found that I preferred to talk to men even more than to women. But I quickly sensed that this was wrong and the Lord warned me to be careful. I saw that it was wrong of me to come between a man and his wife when God had united them together. I decided then that I would never talk freely with any married man if I was not equally free with his wife as well. This decision kept me from many pitfalls. I think it saved me from causing misunderstandings in the homes of many others too. I was thankful for the faithful way in which the Holy Spirit warned me on such occasions to avoid embarrassing situations.

I wondered at times if all girls felt the way I did. These wrong affections would bring a temporary delight in me, but they always left a bad taste afterwards. I was also afraid that this would become another giant in my life that would destroy me. I asked the Lord one day to root out every habit in my life that He was not happy with.

I also found ways in which I could serve the Lord. I volunteered to teach the children in the Sunday school class, and to baby-sit for one or two families, when they needed to go out somewhere. I would also talk to some of the patients about the Lord. I discovered that it didn’t take much to bring joy to people. A smile was enough to lighten up a sick person’s face and a kind word was like a healing balm.

I had to be wise though not to allow people to take advantage of me. I found that there were some patients who took advantage of the kind nurses and made them run around for them as their slaves.

I found that many nurses had a tendency to give advice to one and all. They would talk like experts and act like matrons to others, until people got disgusted with them and would avoid them. Seeing this, I avoided giving people advice, because I knew I was young and inexperienced. I discovered that what many people wanted was someone who would give them a listening ear and not someone who gave them advice. So I developed the habit of listening to the problems of people. Thus I made many friends in every ward in the hospital. The other problem I faced was with my fellow-nurses in the hostel. Most of them were interested only in gossipping and speaking evil of the hospital authorities. They would waste hours in such idle talk. It was very difficult for me to escape from them. But I would find some excuse and go away. I knew that I would have to give an account to the Lord one day for all my speech and for all the gossip I had given a listening ear to.

There were some nurses who were hypochondriacs. They were always imagining that they were sick and wanted the sympathy of others perpetually. I wondered how they would ever be able to get married and shoulder the responsibility of looking after a husband and children, if they were so occupied with themselves in their single days itself!!

These girls were so inconsiderate that they would thrust themselves on others without a thought of the inconvenience they were causing. I wondered at times if it was because they had seen so much sickness in the hospital that they imagined that they themselves had some of those diseases!!

One of the nurses however did get tuberculosis from a patient. She was very upset when she discovered how she had caught the disease. She was an unbeliever and was cursing the patient day and night. How different it is for us who are God’s children. Nothing can happen to us without God’s knowledge. And when we do get sick, thank God He can heal us too. Jesus is our Healer and our burden-bearer. He can heal us miraculously or lead us to a place where we can get the proper treatment for our sickness.

Some of my colleagues were movie-fans and always talked about their favourite movie-stars and sang movie songs in the hostel. I was thankful that I knew nothing of all this and thought of the hymn that said:

"Take my voice and let me sing,
Always only for my King..."

Some of them had ambitions to go to the Middle East countries where they had heard that other nurses had gone and made a lot of money and bought a lot of gold jewellery.

What did the Lord want me to do?

I wanted to help my family financially. But at the same time, I wanted to do the Lord’s will too. I felt that if the Lord blessed the little that I had, it would be like the 5 loaves and 2 fishes that He had blessed on earth and fed 5000 people with.

I had heard of many believers who had gone abroad only to make money. I saw that money was a big snare. And any wealth amassed in a wrong way could become a curse for me and for my family.

I also thought of how my father drank at home and wasted all his money that way. We would have been a rich family, if it were not for his drinking habit. I saw that money was a sacred trust given to us by God and we were to use it wisely and frugally.

I was always busy and had very little spare time. And this was a very good thing. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. I tried to learn to sew and repair my own clothes in the little spare time I had, to keep myself occupied.

I loved my studies and my life was, generally speaking, a happy one. I had a sense of purpose and fulfilment in my life. I wanted to overcome all the setbacks of my childhood and put them behind me forever.

I found some good books in the church library. I saw an old copy of the biography of Madam Guyon there. I had never heard of her before. It was a big book and it took me many months to finish reading it, since I had very little time for reading. But it was one of the best books I ever read. It challenged me afresh to love the Lord with all my heart. It helped me in many different ways in my spiritual life - especially to understand the purpose of suffering and the way of the cross.

"To serve the Lord without any distraction" was now the motto I made for myself - and the inspiration of this motto drew me to follow the Lord.