I live in India and grew up in the mountainous town of Darjeeling. My great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers were from Punjab, and Dehradun in the North of India. My great-grandfather was a Brahmin priest who turned to Christ in a dramatic way, and was persecuted for his faith, almost died when they set his home on fire, but he managed to escape by the skin of the teeth. Most of my ancestors’ origins were Muslim. So we had a very mixed heritage of both Hindu and Muslim. These families all turned to Christ in a mysterious way and Christ united all, and they married into each other’s families. I grew up in a Christian home, but did not really know Jesus nor close to God.
The Dream: When I was 12 years old, a lot of situations arose. I was not at peace with myself or with life. It just seemed everything was dark, looming and uncertain in life. That night as I was about to fall asleep, I remember feeling sad and asking the Heavens, “Are You there? Do you care? What is Life?” I fell asleep in the drawing room and fell into a deep sleep. That night, I had a dream. I saw the sky, cracked blue gray, and then I saw a face in the sky, He was looking down at the world. There was a look of sadness in His eyes. In my dream, I had a sense He was sad about the condition of the world. I knew who that was although this face did not resemble the traditional pictures of Him. It was Jesus! I got up in the early hours of the morning and I was crying, but these were tears of peace and joy and acutely a sense of cleanness, a feeling my soul was washed. That morning was different, I knew Jesus was real, I experienced His presence that night. I kept this dream to myself but was internally at peace with that pervading sense of cleanness. God answered my cry that night by revealing Christ in a dream! I remember writing a letter to my elder sister, Yasmin later and saying, “All is going to be well, I had a dream of Jesus!” I had great comfort in that dream during those years.
Depression : Human memory is short and needs to be reminded constantly of things.. The years rolled on and that image and experience faded from my life. Jesus was a faint picture in my mind. I really could not understand the Bible and nothing ever spoke to me. I knew God was there, but it seemed He was not involved in my life and He was busy taking care of others, not me. My prayers never seemed answered. One winter, when I was a teenager, , I was suddenly hit with an unbearable depression to the pit of my soul. It seemed when evening came, I was afraid, lonely and sad, and during the day, was filled with a deep sadness and could not eat. I found no one could help me. I was going through this for a whole year and I tried taking my life several times through that year ingesting rat poison or overdosing on tablets( sounds crazy to me now and I never could share this earlier when I shared my testimony, I finally found the freedom to share this!), each time I did not succeed!
The Death Trap: One day, I wanted to be sure I would really die. I raced up the hill from my house mumbling something to my mother. My little black dog, Sultan raced me for some time, his presence was comforting for the moment but then he disappeared and I went on right up to town, which was miles away.
I went to medical shop, bought a whole lot of tablets and a bottle of red wine. Somewhere I had read that wine hits the heart fast and a person can end it quick. I took all the tablets and the wine and made my way back, by now I was drowsy and sleepy, by the time I reached home, though drowsy, I suddenly had a sense of destiny. I suddenly knew I did not really want to die. I tried telling my mother to take me to the school infirmary. My mother did not really understand how many tablets I took and she told me to sleep it off. I knew if I slept I would never wake up. So, my mother reluctantly came up to the school infirmary. The school nurse, sharp forthright asked me curtly, “how many?” I told her and she promptly took a doll’s leg and beat my arms up. I did not feel much. ( Later on, I found out the arms usually lose sensation when a person is dying.) She briefly told me not to sleep or I would not get up. She told me to fight it, a sense I already had. Then she gave me a liquid solution. She could see I was fading so she kept speaking to me. I heard her saying she was trying to avoid taking me to the hospital or it would be a police case but if my bladders did not work, it meant the kidneys were shutting down and she would have to call the town hospital. The hospital too was very far for this anyway now. Though I seemed to be fading by life, I had a heightened sense of awareness of atmosphere. I also knew then that nothing in this world is worth the taking of human life. Also, it is only one life, we do not get that chance again.
Towards the end of this awareness, I started seeing a barbed wire, which was iron hot glowing red and I saw black rats running around the red-hot barbed wire. I knew for certainty that I was dying and where I would go was not heaven; it would be a miserable sad place, it looked very grayish from the distance. I was going to an endless eternity without God. Something was very gray, and I sensed I was going to that gray place, it was a sad place and I had a lot of regrets of a wasted life. In this experience, the black rats with the red-barbed hot wire reminded me of hell. The place looked very gray, lost. If people take their lives, they leave the earth with the same sorrow, there is no escape. As I was dying, I had a heightened awareness of something beyond the earth. I could almost read the nurse’s mind. It was a strange contrast, here, I was dying, but on the other hand, I was aware of another realm, but definitely was not a nice place, and I had an impending sense of being lost. I suddenly did not want to die. I was frightened of the place I was seeing.
I realized that nothing on earth was worth taking one’s own life, because that torment will follow us if we take our lives in suicide.. No problem on earth is worth suicide. I was suddenly aware that I did not know Jesus, the Jesus who appeared in my dream when I was 12, the Jesus of the Bible. I seemed to know that I was slipping away to death. To be separated from God is a frightening thing. It is not just a story. Only those who reject God even in the near death experience may be separated for a season for Him and a person has to have a very hate filled heart to do so..quite rare, most people experience Him after the tunnel and He takes them to Heaven.
I felt a deep sadness for a wasted life and I started talking to Jesus for the first time in my life, almost bargaining “Jesus, please save me, please, if You do, I will serve You!” Then, Jesus heard that cry, He answered. Shortly after this, I started to get better, the danger passed and the nurse made me tea. She was clearly relieved. I was exhausted and fell asleep that night in the school infirmary. The next day was the most peaceful day I experienced the whole year since that depression. The depression was gone, lifted up and flew away and never came back again in that attacking intensity. That suicide attack never came back in my life again. Suicide, I learned was a spirit that flew away when I called to Jesus, and it could never come back to me again. Suicide is designed by the devil to take people away from Earth before their time without fulfilling their purpose on Earth.
Land of Forgetfulness: Wretched miserable human beings, thankless and forgetful. I went through a few more years where I forgot the promise that I would serve Jesus. I went through a period of spiritual mysticism, believing in all powers, forces available to help us, reading all spiritual philosophies and the New Age philosophies. Nothing brought me relief. I went through a black phase in my life. Later I went to Kolkotta.
On the sixth day while I was in Kolkotta, one evening I was sitting in my sister’s corner room and I picked up a Bible. I read the Gospels, I was suddenly struck by the love Jesus had for people, the forgiveness. I always thought I was a relatively good person who could never harm anyone but that night as I read the Bible, I suddenly saw for the very first time in my life I was a sinner, wretched and how much I had hurt the Lord by turning away and I wept tears of repentance. I then had the most amazing experience I ever had in my entire life. I felt a power, like supernatural Love wrap me up like a blanket. I was in the midst of this very powerful force, Love, it was not my love. It was not human love. I was immersed in this cloud of Love for two weeks. After that I was filled with a love for people I knew was not mine. I felt I was walking in Heaven. I could forgive people who had harmed me, and that was not natural forgiveness. I knew it was not me. I could love people with a love that came from beyond me! I was allowed to experience this wonderful presence of Love, which I believe was the Presence of God with a pure love for people, and such joy that I felt I was in heaven. I call it the cloud because I was wrapped in it, it was like living in another world altogether. This Presence of Love left me after two weeks when I started worrying again about things, like what should I do about my future…..
New Life: After this experience, I started to understand the Bible for the first time, as before, I did not understand it and it became alive to me! I started to speak to God, started praying and really felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. God has truly changed my life in the reality of His presence. Where there was darkness, now there was light. At that point of death I had before, I knew that time that if I had died, I would go to an eternity without God, a place which I later found out was called hell. I know and have the assurance that if I die today, I will meet God, and His angels will take me to Heaven. I knew things for certainty now, where before I was desperately trying to believe things that brought me into deeper darkness.
I know God sent His Son, Jesus to the world for every single human who became a sacrifice for humankind and recognizing our need for a Savior beyond our natural means. We can never do enough good for our salvation, we would be exhausted trying. The bridge is broken between us and God and the Spirit of God enlightens us to spiritual truths we could never otherwise understand with natural thinking. The presence of God’s Love is stronger than any power on Earth, and when we meet God, we meet with that Love! It is so powerful… God is Love!
I John 4:8: “Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.”
I praise the Lord for all the wonderful amazing things He has done thus far for me and His beautiful presence in my life as I seek to walk with Him daily.
Indeed, He drew me out of deep waters when I was metaphorically drowning, and saved me and place my feet upon a Rock! Remember if God’s Hand is upon your life and He brings you somewhere, He will see you through and bring you through unto victory. He will lift you out of your darkest night. He loves you so much..let Him love you! Every person who calls God will find Him…and He will always find you…He who created you doesn’t need to find you because He knows you even if you don’t know Him, so great is His Love so one can never get lost….
Rita Farhat Mukand Kurian
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