by Thomas Ray
The following is a true story of a Hindu widow’s suffering from the consequences of false religion and evil superstition, and the value of missionaries and their message of love and forgiveness.
“My father was one of India’s elite and a man of great wealth. I was his eldest daughter, but sadly my birth brought him no joy. In fact, he was extremely angry and refused to see me because my mother had given him a daughter instead of a son. However, when I was two my mother gave birth to a son, and my father’s attitude completely changed towards me.
When I was six, according to custom, I was married. The wedding was elaborate and expensive. My husband was a wealthy friend of my father and 26 years my senior. During the next six years, my mother taught me to cook and how to serve and care for my husband. In my 12th year, my husband arrived on a brightly decorated elephant to take me to my new home, where I was placed under the authority of my mother-in-law whose cruelty knew no bounds. However, all of that changed just before my 13th birthday when I gave birth to a baby boy.
My husband moved me into an elaborate apartment and provided me with servants who catered to my every need, but this life of luxury came to an abrupt end about a year later. My husband contracted cholera and was dead within hours. The women of the compound stormed into my apartment and began to beat and curse me, stating that I was responsible for my husband’s death and claiming his death was the result of some horrible sin I had committed in a previous life. The women stripped me of my fine clothes, shaved my head, and dressed me in mourning clothes. They told me if I wanted to escape an eternity of suffering and honor my husband, I would die in the flames of my dead husband’s funeral pyre. This I would not do, I could never abandon my little boy.
My husband’s family sent me and my son back to my father. He refused to see me and told his servant I had brought shame upon him, and he would have preferred that I had died in the flames of my husband’s funeral pyre than return a cursed widow. My father sent me to live in a bamboo hut along with my old Ayah (nanny), who was also a widow, to help me. My life was one of loneliness and isolation, and even my mother would not visit me fearing she would suffer the wrath of the gods for associating with a cursed widow. One day my Ayah informed me a white man and a white woman had visited our village. This was the first white woman our villagers had ever seen. My Ayah said her clothing was totally different, and she did not cover her face and most surprising, she did not walk behind her husband but by his side. Later she spoke to the women and explained she had come to tell us about the one true God who loved us and sent His son Jesus to die for our sins.
I wanted immediately to go and talk to the white woman, but I had been warned that if I left my hut, my son would be taken from me. I sent my Ayah to find the white woman and tell her about my situation and ask her to visit me. The next day the white woman came to my hut and read words out of a book she called ‘God’s Word.’ She told me God loved me and sent his son Jesus to die for my sins. She also described the joys of heaven which is free from all pain and sorrow.
Many years have passed since the white women first visited me. My life has been difficult, death has taken my beloved Ayah, and my son has left me and despises me because I am a cursed widow. Although my eyes have grown dim and my hearing dull, the white woman’s words are still alive in my heart. I dream of the day when Jesus will come and take me to heaven and I will no longer be a cursed widow. I will pray each day until I die the prayer the white woman taught me: ‘God, our creator, all love, all powerful, ever present, all willing to save! In the name of Jesus Christ his Son who died to redeem, forgive, pity, and save me.’”