Where My Story Began
I was born into a family in a beautiful seaside village in South India. From the outside, life appeared secure. My late father was a doctor, and my mother is a homemaker. I was my parents’ only child. Our family roots were in Hinduism, and my great-grandfather was connected with the Hindu temple priesthood and supported temple activities.
For a time, prosperity gave us a sense of stability, but our circumstances changed dramatically. What once felt secure gave way to deep poverty, until even obtaining a loaf of bread became difficult. Looking back, I believe pride and arrogance contributed to our family’s decline. The Bible says that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18), and when I look back at our family story, I can understand the truth behind those words. Through that hardship, we had to learn humility and dependence. Yet even in our lack, God had not forgotten us.
My childhood also carried wounds that were not visible from the outside. It was not the happy and carefree childhood that many children experience. Because of my father’s character and behavior, my mother and I went through extremely painful situations, including physical abuse. What my mother endured during those years is difficult for me even to explain in words. I also suffered serious injuries, including several bone fractures, and there were days when I ran away from home because I could no longer bear the situation. Although my father cared for me at times, that care was inconsistent, and in many ways I grew up missing the security, affection, and protection of a father.
Yet those circumstances did not completely take away my desire to study and build a future. Engineering was my dream, although financially it seemed almost impossible. With the help of my family, a way was eventually made for me to enter university and study engineering.
Considering the circumstances in which I grew up, I could easily have made wrong decisions or followed a very different path. There were many opportunities for my life to go in the wrong direction. But looking back now, I can see something I could not fully understand then: God did not allow me to be lost. Even before I understood what He was doing, His hand was over my life.
I have forgiven my father. Forgiveness, however, does not erase every memory or every wound. I still remember what happened. But those wounds are no longer the whole story of my life.
My late father practised Hinduism for many years. Later, after a dramatic situation, he accepted Jesus Christ in his mid-fifties. The story behind his coming to Christ is itself a big testimony and an important part of our family’s journey, but I will not go through that whole story here.
From an early age, I longed to know God and His wisdom. He placed good friends in my life who pointed me toward Christ rather than toward the world. At eighteen, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Still, my life was far from perfect. I gave in to temptation and damaged my closeness with God, but He did not abandon or discard me. He corrected my path, restored me, and strengthened my walk with Him.
After this whole story of my life, when I look back—from childhood wounds and poverty to failures, restoration, and experiences I could never have planned for myself—I see one thread running through everything: the faithfulness of God.
This testimony begins not with how faithfully I held on to God, but with how faithfully He held on to me.
You may not share my faith or know what to make of the experiences I am about to describe. I understand that. I do not ask you to pretend certainty or ignore your questions; I simply invite you to read my story with an open heart.