Episode 257: Father, Forgive Them: One Woman's Journey to Freedom (Reprise)

[00:00:01] I was just looking at this stained glass window and the cross there and constantly staring at it and asking God a lot of questions. Like, I came here to say goodbye to you, but before I say that, I want to ask you some questions.

[00:00:20] Where were you when my parents abused me? Where were you when those men abused me? Where were you when I was struggling and writing in pain from all the beatings I took from my mother? Where were you when I was starving without food and water?

[00:00:47] Where were you when I had to abort my two kids? And where are you now in my life? Are you even there? Are you even looking at me? I asked all these questions and then the man in the pulpit, he said, they don't know what they are doing.

[00:01:11] That was the word of Christ. And that broke me. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing. Hello and welcome to Candid where we never settle for less than the truth. I'm your host, Jonathan Yousef.

[00:01:31] Each week we'll tackle tough issues, answer your hard questions, and take a candid look at the Christian faith. This week we'd like to thank TikTok Bear for their review. They say, after discovering Leading the Way ministry, then the weekly online services at

[00:01:49] Church of the Apostles, finding this podcast presented by Jonathan Yousef was an exemplary companion to a real world look at current issues affecting Christians. Thank you, TikTok Bear. Please remember to leave us a review. Perhaps next episode we will mention you on the show.

[00:02:10] Forgiveness is challenging regardless of how we've been wronged. But how do we forgive when the abuse is at the hands of those who should love and protect us? How do we forgive when the offense is great and the wound is deep?

[00:02:29] I invite you to join me today as I welcome a guest who has asked to remain anonymous to protect her privacy and safety. We have been diligently praying and hoping here at Candid that one day she would come and tell her story.

[00:02:43] And I have to say, I've heard her tell her story before, but this telling has left me struck by the awe and wonder of the power of the Lord's saving and sanctifying work in us. Listen, as our guest shares her profound story of forgiveness, healing, and freedom that

[00:03:03] could only be found in Christ. Now on to our Candid conversation. Today we have a special guest who is going to share her personal testimony and story with us. And she comes from a very unique background and has a very long journey that she's been

[00:03:26] through in life, and certainly one that God has had His hand on all throughout the process. I'm sure many of you can relate to some aspects of this, and most of us won't relate to others.

[00:03:40] There's great difficulty, there's tragedy, but at the core of it is a renewed life and restoration. And so we rejoice in these good things. And so I'm going to invite my guest to tell us a little bit about your upbringing, and we'll go from there. Hello, Jonathan. Hi.

[00:04:04] So I was born in India to a very conservative middle-class family. I'm the firstborn of several siblings, and when I was like very young, my family, we migrated to a Middle Eastern country. And that is where most of my childhood was.

[00:04:30] Although I was born in India, I was raised in the Middle East, I don't know what to call home. Yeah, I understand. So if you would ask me what is my home, I don't know.

[00:04:41] I feel like I'm not very Indian, and at the same time, I'm not very Middle Eastern. It's like somewhere... You're a woman without a country. Exactly. My family was not believers initially. My father was Catholic and my mother was Protestant, but they were like namesake Christians.

[00:05:02] So growing up in a house where we did not go to church, and I did not know the Lord growing up. Though we were living in the Middle East, our home was a very, very conservative Indian culture at home.

[00:05:22] Explain that to our listeners who may not understand Indian culture. What do you mean by conservative? Very backward. There was a lot of patriarchy. Women had no say in anything. Whatever the man of the house said was the final say. My mother, she did not work.

[00:05:46] She became a full-time homemaker taking care of us. My father, what I saw growing up was she didn't have any freedom to take decisions for our family. It was my father who had the final say.

[00:06:03] I grew up in a mindset where your actions or whatever you do should never bring shame to the family. You have to always have the respect of your family, what people would think as the first and foremost thing every day you wake up.

[00:06:21] Your actions, what you'd speak, should always bring honor to your family. I remember when I was 10 years old, my mother, she sat me and my sister down, and she gave us this advice that, you're growing up into girls, and whatever you do, the world will

[00:06:42] point back at your father and mother and shame us. Be careful who you speak to, what you see, how you dress. You should never look at a man in the eye. Your gaze should always look at the floor when you walk.

[00:06:58] Nobody should point their finger at you and say, look at the way they brought their kids up. That was the culture I was raised in. You should not speak back to your parents or any elders.

[00:07:11] Even if they are wrong, you have no right to point them or call them out. Spanking was very common in our family. If we did what our parents did not approve of, we would get beaten up. In my family, it was a little different though with that.

[00:07:32] I never understood why it was this way. My mother always, always, always favored my siblings over me. I look back now, walking through the healing journey I walked through, which I'll get into it later, I can have an idea of why she did what she did.

[00:07:52] I rebelled the most too. It didn't seem fair to me the way she would use cuss words at me and beat me up. I don't see her do that to my siblings. It seemed like something about me just set her off.

[00:08:09] Whatever I did or spoke or the way I behaved, something triggered in her to always behave in that way to me. It continued for years until well into my adulthood. I never ever had a good relationship with my mother.

[00:08:28] That could be one reason why I always wanted to get out of my home, leave home. I was eager to grow up faster, to leave home. Part of that is also escaping the culture, not just the home situation.

[00:08:46] It's interesting because both the Middle East and India is an honor-shame culture. I'm sure it wasn't that the Indian culture was in a Western setting where it would have stood out amongst the rest, but it actually fit in ideologically.

[00:09:03] When we were living in the Middle East, here in the United States you would see a group of people from a common country congregate together. They hang out together. They go to festivals or events together. It was the same there.

[00:09:21] There was an Indian group of friends and families around us, so we would always congregate together. I never had friends growing up. My friends would be the friends of my parents' friends' kids. When I say they're conservative, my parents went to the level where they would even monitor

[00:09:43] the phone calls I had with my friends from school. I only had a handful of friends, like two or three, which I could just name them off because I always felt like I was not worthy to have friends.

[00:09:57] I was not allowed to, or if they really know what kind of life I was living in home, that they would not want to be friends with me. It was like I was entirely a different person when I was in school.

[00:10:10] When I would come back home, I still want to call my friends and talk to them, at least one or two of them, because home was like living hell for me. And then when I do that, you know the landlines?

[00:10:20] There would be like two landlines, so my mother would take the other phone and she would be like listening in. And then if she finds something I said that she didn't like, she would come and she would

[00:10:31] say swear words to me and beat me for saying those things. So life was rough growing up. I remember a particular incident where I was in middle school and it was the last day of the exam and I want to hang out with my friends after the exam.

[00:10:57] My sister was also going to do the same thing after the exam. We're not going to see our friends for like a month or so. My parents had let her go to her friend's house.

[00:11:08] But for me, my mom even know the girl whose house I'm going to go to, she knows her parents everyone but she wouldn't let me because my friend, she had an older brother in that house.

[00:11:22] My mom told me, you want to go to your friend's house, hang out and bring shame to the family? I'm like, I'm going to go see my friend and play with her and dad can come and pick me up in the evening.

[00:11:34] So they wouldn't let me do anything as a child. I never had any dolls. I never had any playthings. I didn't have a childhood. I didn't have a childhood that any child here I see growing up with.

[00:11:52] Going to places where they would have fun like, I don't know, maybe Chuck E. Cheese or Disney. Where kids can be kids. I didn't have that. You were raising you to be an adult. Yes. That is how a day in my home looked like.

[00:12:14] Then my brother was born. We had a very long age gap. When he was born, life suddenly shifted in my home. It's like he was allowed to be a child. He was allowed to be a kid. He had toys. He had Christmas presents. He had friends.

[00:12:35] He would go out in the evening and play with the kids around the neighborhood. I was not allowed to do that. Then me seeing him grow that way, you know, the first cartoon I saw was when he was watching a cartoon.

[00:12:56] I didn't even know Mickey Mouse was a thing until I was 14 years old. So absolutely no childhood. Seeing my brother was given those things, it was very hurtful because that's where patriarchy's hand was so heavy.

[00:13:16] Men were allowed to live that life, be a child, be a teenager, be a man. Freedoms and privileges. But that was not the case for me, even for my sister. But I would say from my experience, my mother was hard with me compared to my sister.

[00:13:43] So did you find an outlet? Was it sort of pursuing academics or what was sort of your driving force? You're wanting to get out of the home. What was the outlet that you used to get away from that? My outlet was suicide.

[00:14:05] I was a teenager and that was also the time when our family got introduced to the church. A life change happened, a life-changing event happened in my family which brought my dad to church. He brought our family to church. Church was new.

[00:14:30] The people who we associated with church were so different from the people who we associated with before that. They were all like friends of my parents who would gather together and hang out and drink and have fun.

[00:14:44] But once we were introduced into the church, the people we started hanging out with were like more prayer groups and prayer meetings and Bible studies, things like that. It was very new for me. I started going to the children's Sunday school.

[00:15:03] Learning about stories of the Bible was fascinating. It was so new and hearing Jesus loves you and Jesus wants to have a relationship with you, Jesus loves children. I'm like, where was Jesus when I was growing up? Why did he take so much time to find me?

[00:15:25] Why I had to wait 14-15 years to get to know him? You know when you come to Christ, you have eternal life? As a child in my head, it translated it like, okay, I know Jesus is there. I hate this life. Let me go to him.

[00:15:46] So I believed in Jesus and I wanted to commit suicide so I'll go to him. So I knew I wouldn't go to hell. It's a better alternative than what you were in. There was another thing in my childhood.

[00:15:56] I was also sexually abused by three of my father's friends. It changed things in me. I felt like a shame and that I deserved the way my parents treated me. Looking at the way they treated me, I was so afraid to tell anything to them.

[00:16:18] I was afraid the beatings would get worse. You were afraid they'd blame you for this? Yeah, above everything. And there was this person from church. He was also abusing me when my parents were not around. He would come home. It was very dark time.

[00:16:40] I was literally scared to be around older men. It is so easy to tell an Indian girl or child, if you open your mouth about this, nobody's going to believe you and you're going to be punished. And you'll bring shame.

[00:16:59] And that had been built into your psyche from a young age. So it had a powerful hold on you. Indian older men would think that's okay to abuse a teenage child. No to play that card very well.

[00:17:14] So this was all happening and I'm like, my way of escape is I want to leave. I remember taking several, several, several handful of painkillers. And it was after church. It was one Friday after church. Because in the Middle East, churches on Friday because of Islam. Yes.

[00:17:40] So you don't go to church on a Sunday. Because of the meds I took, I ended up in the hospital, constantly throwing up and it was overdose. Parents didn't even take me to a hospital. They took me to a clinic because it would cost money.

[00:18:02] Were they angry with you at that? They thought I was sick. I became sick. They didn't know about an overdose. They didn't know about it. I remember waking up heavily sedated and my mother was sitting next to me and she was

[00:18:17] like, so how long are you planning to stay here and increase the hospital bill? Get well soon and come home. And I remember laying in a bed and I'm like, God, why did you take me? It took me several months to recover. I missed exams.

[00:18:43] And then a year after that, I was finding every avenue to run away from home. Every possible way. And then my parents are very frugal with money. It's a middle class mindset, saving money. So I remember telling my dad, it's a made up story.

[00:19:05] I told my dad that my friends are going to India to study because they said the education is cheaper there. So some of them are going to India to study. I'm going to miss them. That sparked my dad. It was a clever plan. He told me that.

[00:19:22] You knew the way to your dad's heart. Would you like to go to India to study? I'm like, I had to go along with it. I'm like, but I will miss you all. He was like, let me talk to my relatives in India.

[00:19:37] And then he called up some people and they were willing to help my dad for helping us find schools. And they found a boarding school and I went to the boarding school. For the first time in my life, I felt like my plan worked running away from home.

[00:19:57] I was in the boarding school for three years. Growing up in a home where people didn't show love to me, there was no words of affirmation. Nobody said I love you. I've never seen my parents hold hands or touch or express love to themselves or to us.

[00:20:21] It was never in the picture. I was hungry for love. I was hungry for people to love me and I made a lot of mistakes in the boarding school. Like I got into a lot of trouble. I was a rebel.

[00:20:40] But every time I got into trouble, people would excuse me because I would excel in academics. That was my way of telling people that I have the upper hand because I'm excelling in my studies.

[00:20:58] And the school I was in was very prestigiously known for getting higher marks in school. So they needed you. So they kept me. Those times where the principal called my parents and they were like, your daughter is uncontrollable. You have to take her back.

[00:21:17] And then they would call them back and tell like she's got good grades. So I was rebelling in every avenue I could. Explored things and because I was very caged. Then college. I did not want to pursue engineering. I did not.

[00:21:36] So something I want to tell you about Indian mindset is everybody wants to become engineers or doctors. Those are the only two professions. If you could tell your parents, I don't want to be an engineer or a doctor or I want to pursue something else.

[00:21:53] They would look at it like as if they heard a blasphemy. They were like, don't ever talk anything like that again. You are going to join engineering college. If you're wealthy, you're going to join a medical school. We were not wealthy.

[00:22:10] The only avenue my parents will ever entertain is engineering. And my dad came down to India to get me admission in a college. I absolutely hated it, but that's what he said I have to do. And I went into it.

[00:22:26] I was staying in, we call it hostel in India. It means like boarding school. Boarding school but for college. So I was dormitory. It was very strict, extremely strict. It was like a military school. Cell phones were not allowed.

[00:22:46] Girls aren't supposed to talk to guys and guys aren't supposed to talk to girls. You can't have any kind of haircuts or you had to be very cleanly trimmed and neatly dressed, display your ID card out all the time. That's you're going to be severely punished.

[00:23:02] It was a military college. It was like that. And that's what my parents wanted because they don't want me bringing shame to the family. Your high school years, sure. So I was in that life for two years and then later after that some family situation changed

[00:23:21] and my mom came to live with us in India. So we were, I was not part of the hostel system but I would, we were renting an apartment in the city and I would go to college every day via college bus. I'd use a college bus to go.

[00:23:38] So that was also hell for me because my mom was living with us. Brought back a lot of bad memories. The one thing I really, really did not miss when I was away from home was the physical abuse. Let me tell you this.

[00:23:59] There is not one thing that my mom has not hit me with. From your slippers till the broomstick, belt, kitchen spoons, whatever she could find in her hand. I've been beaten by all of it. Even with the slippers. It was a life of humiliation and torture with her.

[00:24:22] And I was really scared that would start again. It did. Whenever I disobeyed what she told me to do. In that phase of time was, I was going to this church in the city and I met a guy and I liked him and he liked me.

[00:24:43] For the first time I felt like someone liked me and wanted to be with me. And you know how here in this culture when you start dating someone you bring them to your family and introduce them. In Indian culture it's all hush hush.

[00:25:00] If you like someone you never talk about it to anyone. Only your best friends who you trust know about it. You don't talk about it on social media. In social media your status will be like as if you're still single. But you're not.

[00:25:15] You'll be dating this person and it's all clandestine because you don't want to give away to your family that you're in love with this person. Because they will do everything in their power to stop that. I was in love with this guy for a couple of years.

[00:25:35] It was almost end of college time and I was going to college from my home. I was not in the hostel. And that's when I became pregnant with my boyfriend who I was dating when I was in college.

[00:25:50] And when he found out he was super shocked and he wanted me to get an abortion. You can't find places to go to do abortion in India. It's not very easy. It's frowned upon in Indian culture. Of course. They would kill you. They would just kill you.

[00:26:14] So one thing is he didn't want me to have it. Another thing is even if I wanted to keep it, if my parents find out, the next morning I won't be alive. They would just kill me. Honor killing.

[00:26:28] At the end of the day, they don't care about their child. They want the name of the family to be upheld. Like he brought up his family in a very good way. His children didn't bring shame to him. That is what my parents were so keen upon.

[00:26:44] I didn't want to die. I really didn't want to die. And death from my mother's hands would be brutal. I know that firsthand. So I gave in to his decision. And he was very wealthy, so he had a lot of friends who were doctors. I got an abortion.

[00:27:06] And then I buried it. I functioned as if that piece of life did not happen. I intentionally dug a deep, deep, deep pit and buried it. Like I could never access it ever again. That deep it was.

[00:27:28] Then I graduated college with honors and in India we called that as gold medalist. So I was a university topper and I was a gold medalist. My parents were very proud. They boasted and bragged about me to everybody. You're bringing honor to the family. Yeah.

[00:27:48] I didn't know how deep and dark my life inside was. And then I got into job and my boyfriend, then he asked me if we could get married because in his family they were forcing him to get married and he wanted to tell his family that

[00:28:08] he was in love with me and we want to get married. I'm like, okay, let's get married. At the time, even when I was working, I was still going from my apartment where my mom was living with us.

[00:28:20] So I'm like, instead of living with her, getting married to this guy seems like way better. So he told about me to his family and I told about him to my family and I should have done better.

[00:28:35] They did not listen to it and they didn't let me go out of the house for three days. They locked me inside the house and asked me to cut all ties with him and to forget him and to not continue this affair.

[00:28:49] They called it the affair because I went against my parents. What was it about him that went against their wishes? He was from a different caste. He was a Christian, but he was from a different caste.

[00:29:07] He was from a caste where they didn't wear jewelry, called them Pentecosts in India. I was from a caste where you wear heavy jewelry. That's a big shame. So it didn't matter to them that he was a believer. What mattered to them was the social status, cultural thing.

[00:29:31] And caste is a big, big, big deciding factor. These are social orders within the Indian... For me, when I look at this country, how I see racism is so divided. It translates into casteism in India. It is huge. I didn't even know that guy's caste. Right.

[00:29:53] I didn't even, I didn't care. You didn't care. I didn't care. He didn't care. But parents did. Sunil and I, they didn't give me food or water for three days. And I gave in. Again, I didn't want to die. I was afraid.

[00:30:10] And also at that point, I was not walking very closely with the Lord. I knew Jesus was there, but looking at the way my life turned out and seeing still I was stuck in the family, I gave up hope. I gave up faith.

[00:30:30] Was it that you felt like he had forgotten you? Yes. Okay. Yes. My quibble with him was, it took you 14 years to come and find me, and then you left me there. What did you do for me? Why didn't you miraculously save me?

[00:30:46] Where are your miracles in the Bible today? Aren't you powerful? So I didn't pray much. I didn't walk with the Lord in that season of my life. Then I gave in, and my parents were worried that I would go back to that life.

[00:31:09] So they quickly tried to find a groom for me. I was 21 years old when all of this was happening. They found a relative of mine who was older than me, and they quickly arranged for a wedding within months. I hadn't even met this person.

[00:31:30] And they were like, they told me, I was at work, and my dad called me and told me, this is the date you're going to get married, and this is the name of the person in this place. Could you imagine?

[00:31:41] I mean, just put yourself in that situation, what that would be like. Yeah. At that time, I didn't have any energy in me to fight. I'm like, I don't have friends. I don't have support system. My family and my extended family are all the same like-minded people.

[00:32:07] And India is not a place where women could just do whatever they wanted to do. I'm sure some people would disagree with that. But living that life there, that is how it was for me. I had absolutely no support system.

[00:32:26] I didn't have friends because I was so afraid that if they know who I really was, they would not want to be friends with me. I couldn't even bring them to my home.

[00:32:36] My mom would be like looking at them with this hawk eyes and seeing, you know, yeah, who would bring me to my ruin? So I absolutely had nobody there. So I'm like, fine, if this is going to be my life, let it be. I gave in.

[00:32:55] I'm like, okay. I applied leave in my office for those days. And then I went to my hometown to get married to this relative of mine and it is in the altars where I'm first seeing him. And he looked so different from the photograph they showed me.

[00:33:13] Older, no hair. Why I say that is in the photo they showed me, he was having a lot of hair and was looking very younger. Like it mattered. I mean, at that point it's forced. I had no say in the wedding.

[00:33:30] Like, you know how here the brides, they decide what flowers they want, what kind of food they want, what menu they want, what kind of dress they want, what kind of people they want to call, what music they want to walk down the aisle. I...

[00:33:44] You were a prisoner of your own wedding. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's going to be very graphic what I'm saying, but it was like leading a prisoner to the death sentence. Like where you take them by the hand to go and hang them, you know? Yeah.

[00:34:02] That's how it felt. My father was taking me to the... Leading you to your gallows. To the gallows to hang me. It was that walk for me. At least to that person they ask you, what is your final death wish?

[00:34:14] I was thinking in my mind, I didn't even have that. You didn't even get a last meal. Wedding happened. He and I, we moved to the city where we both were working. We both were in tech, different companies.

[00:34:31] He was my relative, so it was not like his families were strangers to me. I know them, but I never had a relationship with them. My mother-in-law and my father-in-law then, they were very, very controlling and manipulative.

[00:34:51] Especially he was the only son and they didn't want to lose him. They thought that I would take him away from them. I would make him not love them anymore. They didn't live with us, but they would call me every day, especially my mother-in-law.

[00:35:09] They virtually lived with you. Yeah, virtually. She would call me every morning and she would tell me what I have to cook for her son and what I have to make for lunch, what I have to make for dinner. We both were working.

[00:35:23] That means we both had to get out of the house to go to work. I would wake up like 5 a.m., make breakfast, lunch, and pack it, and then do the dishes, and then get ready, iron his clothes.

[00:35:35] I was not allowed to give my clothes out for laundry. I was expected to wash it and iron his clothes and keep it ready for him to wear it. I did that every morning.

[00:35:47] Then he would wake up like half hour before he had to leave, shower, change, grab the lunch box, make a pack, and then go. In India you don't have like 9 to 5. It is 9 to 9. It's 12-hour work.

[00:36:02] So 9 o'clock when I finished my work shift, I would come home at 9.30 and then make dinner and then wash dishes and then prep the food for the next day.

[00:36:14] By the time I go to bed, it would be like 1 a.m. or 12 to 1, and then wake up at 5 again. This went for all the weekdays. Weekends it was the same. I had no holiday.

[00:36:26] At least if there is some happiness in the marriage, I thought I could tolerate this. He was an angry man and he felt very threatened by me and my upbringing. I was raised in the Middle East and he never left the country.

[00:36:42] So he was always threatened that I was very modern and I was very forward thinking. If I was modern and forward thinking, I wouldn't even have gotten into that arranged marriage in the first place. To tell you the truth, I didn't know who I was even.

[00:36:57] I didn't have an identity. For me, I was a daughter to my parents and then at the age of 21 I was wife to this man. That was all my identity was. I didn't even have a favorite food or a favorite color.

[00:37:11] But my mother, if you ask her what is my brother's favorite food, she would tell you. She would make that every day for him. But you ask her what is my favorite food, they wouldn't know. I didn't have one.

[00:37:23] As we were navigating my marriage, there was a lot of physical abuse. There was a lot of beating. That is when I turned very dark. The one thing all my life I had was a lot of physical beatings. My body was like so bruised up by that.

[00:37:41] And then there's this guy, he comes and he continues the same pattern that my parents did. There was a day where, I don't know if you have that thing here in the United States, it's called a pressure cooker.

[00:37:56] It's like a heavy thing, it has a heavy vessel in the top. It will like blow when it's done. He took that and he threw it, that's a heavy thing, he threw it at me. I dashed it and broke the glass windows. That was just one episode.

[00:38:10] It was abuse after abuse after abuse. His parents didn't stop with just controlling. They would show up unannounced and they would verbally abuse me. It was life of hell. There was even a point in time where my father-in-law then hit me.

[00:38:31] And then that's what I was like, I resolved that this is my fate. I will stay alive or survive as long as I have life in me. And then I'm going to be out of it by death.

[00:38:46] A few years this was going on and that's when at work, I was working for a major company in the United States and we were their vendors and we were giving them tech service from India. And that was when a position here in the United States opened.

[00:39:05] Like I said, when I was going through these dark days in my life growing up, I still excelled in my studies. The same way when I was still married and going through, I excelled in my work.

[00:39:17] I would not let anyone point finger at me telling you didn't do your work well. I always went above and beyond to deliver good work. And I think it was an avenue for me to feel like at least one area of my life I could control it.

[00:39:34] Right, yeah. The only area of control. So that wasn't my power and I wanted to do well. And I did well at work and the only thing I could have control was the work I did. But the money I got from that, my husband had control of it.

[00:39:51] And here the phone works differently. In India you need to recharge your phone. Like you need to put prepaid money in it to talk or text or do. Even to do that, I had to ask him money.

[00:40:04] And then when he recharges my phone and then when I run out of it, he would ask me, he'd take my phone log and see how did I spend that money. It was very micromanaged to that level.

[00:40:15] My boss, he told me that there was a position that opened in the United States and if I was willing to travel, I just chuckled, laughed. I'm like, okay, that's funny. I'm not going to go. It sounds enticing. It doesn't matter I like it or not.

[00:40:28] I'm not going to go because that's what's not going to let me go. And he had so much pressure from his boss to fill that position. And he was like, you know what? Let's just apply for your visa.

[00:40:43] And I don't know if you know how H1B works. It's lottery system. If you apply for a visa, there is no guarantee you will get it. Your application goes through a lottery system and only if it is picked, you get it.

[00:40:54] Else, even if you have everything right, if your visa is not picked in the lottery, you're not going to go. So he's like, you know how it works, right? Yours may not be picked. So he wants to answer his boss telling he did something.

[00:41:08] So he was like pushing me to do it. And I'm like, let me tell you this. Even if it gets picked, I am not going. Do what you want to do. And he applied on my behalf, my boss did. And I forgot about it after that.

[00:41:23] And it was during this season, I had an aunt who I know was walking with the Lord. She was the only person, only tangible person I knew was sincerely walking with the Lord.

[00:41:37] I was not even walking with the Lord at the time, but I would go to her to ask her to pray for me. I called her up and I didn't call her from my phone. I misused my company asset. I was scared my husband would find out.

[00:41:53] So I would call from my office, which was only supposed to call clients and do status calls. And I would call her from that and quickly tell her, aunt, I can only speak for two minutes, but this is happening. Please pray for me. I'll call you back.

[00:42:07] You pray about it tomorrow. I'll call you back the same time. Tell me what the Lord told you. She prophesied. So tell me what the Lord tells you. I treated her like how you would go to a lady to read your tarot cards.

[00:42:21] And then she sincerely prayed for me. And then I would call her back, aunt, I only have two minutes. Tell me what the Lord told you. And then she told me that I see the Lord taking you to a land that's flowing with milk and honey.

[00:42:34] It is so beautiful and lush. And I see you walking there. And I'm like, okay, but what about this position? Should I go or not? I just let up. Sorry, child. That's what the Lord told me. And I'm telling you what the Lord told me.

[00:42:49] I think it didn't make any sense to me. And I'm like, okay, fine. My visa was picked up in the lot. And there were like 10 people in my office that applied. All nine of them desperately wanted to come to this country. The one person who wasn't...

[00:43:08] Just leave me alone. And only two visas were picked, mine and another guy's. He wanted to go and I didn't. And when my boss called all 10 of us into the room and you have to look at the face

[00:43:22] of the rest of the eight of them, because all of them knew that I had no interest in this. And there was jealousy, there was envy, there was anger, because coming to this country is a golden ticket. Life in the third world is very difficult.

[00:43:43] Everyone wants to come here and I didn't want to. My boss called me separately and he told me, hey, I know you don't want to go. How does the situation now stands? Can you travel? This happened a few weeks after when my parents-in-law came and they assaulted me.

[00:44:04] And my husband then just stood by watching and did nothing. And then that like fueled me, that anger fueled me. I'm like, I want to get out if I can. I want to get out from these people.

[00:44:17] And I told him what I should do, tell me, tell me what I should do. And he was like, okay, you need to go to this United States consulate in the city to go and appear in front of them and take the interview there.

[00:44:31] And if they are okay with your interview, they would stamp your passport. I'm like, okay. So I prepped everything. I went through all the online courses, how I have to prepare for the interview.

[00:44:45] And my husband, he knew that this was going on, but I told him like, I'm not going to go. My boss wanted to do it for his reasons. I'm just going along with it.

[00:44:55] And he was completely okay with it because he knew that he could physically stop me anytime. He was not worried about it. But then when he found out my visa was picked up at the lottery, because he's also in tech, he knows what it means.

[00:45:11] He knows it's a new life. And he knew how distressed I was. He was afraid that I would just bail out on him. So he hid all the documents that I needed for this interview. And I couldn't find it.

[00:45:27] And then a friend of mine from work, she came and she helped me look everywhere. And then there was this tall attic, where you just dump old stuff. And they sits in for decades. And so she had this wisdom to go and look in there.

[00:45:43] And she found my documents bundled up and just tossed inside. And she crawled into the attic and she got it from me. And then she told me like, she was going to keep it with her because she didn't trust I could keep it safe.

[00:46:00] Because I didn't have anywhere else to keep it safe. Right, yeah, you couldn't keep it there, sure. And then she came with me to the interview. And I still remember the moment I was sitting in front of an American just like you, Jonathan. And that he was counseling.

[00:46:15] He was asking me questions about my work. And I explained how I did what I did and why I wanted to come here to work. And he was impressed. And he was like, he sealed my passport right in front of me, like approved. And then I cried.

[00:46:35] I had tears flowing down and he said, welcome to the United States of America. Then I got my passport, I went home. I went to work the next day. I didn't tell anything to my husband. I went home and I went to work the next day.

[00:46:52] I took my work phone and not supposed to do this, but I did it. I called my parents. I told my dad, call my friend's phone immediately. I need to talk to you. So I gave them my co-worker's number.

[00:47:07] And my father called my co-worker because I can't talk from my phone. So then the thing is, I can't even tell all this to someone because what will one think in this 21st century, people are like this. It's difficult for me to explain my situation to people.

[00:47:27] So, but my dad called my co-worker's phone and I told him, hey, I got the visa. I'm going to go. This is what is happening. It has come to a point where I can't take this abuse anymore.

[00:47:41] He can come if he wants, but I am going to go. I don't know if it is God's grace or not, they understood what I was going through. My mother came to India to put me in that flight. She's done many things, but I will give her this.

[00:48:02] She came and she put me in the flight. My flight was from India to New York. So when I was sitting in the gate with everyone who's waiting to board, all the Indians, I see their faces with so much enthusiasm, excitement, looking forward to go to this country.

[00:48:24] And I am sitting there scared to death, thinking what if he comes in now and drags me back? They all have a sure shot of getting into that flight. I don't. I remember that feeling sitting in front of that gate waiting to board the flight and

[00:48:43] scared to death. And the lines were boarding. That moment I prayed that prayer, God, I did not trust in you all these years, but if you are really the God who you say you are the God of the Bible, give me safe passage.

[00:49:01] Like having my carry-on bag, clenching my documents in my hand and praying. And then they called my section for boarding and I'm standing there and turning back and looking if he's coming. And got into the flight. I'm still afraid. Flight takes off. I am still afraid.

[00:49:26] Everyone were like watching movies and other fun stuff in the TV of the in-flight entertainment. I am looking at this map. You need a certain distance. Yes. As the flight is like leaving the border of the country and when it was in the Arabian Sea, I cried.

[00:49:47] I've traveled a lot from Middle East to India. Flight journey is not new for me. That journey was different. It was like leaving Egypt for the Israelites. Yeah. Wow. That was my moment of the waters parting. A miracle.

[00:50:08] And then my flight landed in the JFK at early morning, six o'clock. As I'm looking out through the window, I see that statue of liberty. Like how you know you die and you enter heaven? It was like that. It was like the gates of heaven waiting for me.

[00:50:29] Yeah. This country has been the country of second chance, rebirth literally for me. Came here, a few friends from work helped me settle down, find an apartment for myself and help me commute to work just doing all the immigrant stuff.

[00:50:51] I found an Indian grocery store nearby to go and buy Indian food because the first time I went to Walmart, the onion is in white color. I've never seen onion in white color.

[00:51:03] And I'm thinking in my head, how am I going to cook Indian food with white onion? Simple things in life. Simple things like that. Then I found the Indian grocery store and finding my way around the city, it was like a baby learning to walk.

[00:51:22] I was trying to find my life, my identity. And a month into this, I found out I am pregnant again. The night I found out, I was gripped with fear. Because since my exit from the country, my husband did not talk to me.

[00:51:45] He did not reach out or whenever I called, there was no response. He was very furious that I left the country. That was a point he was not talking and I didn't know what to do. If I tell my family this, I know what they would say.

[00:52:02] The same mother who put me in that flight will catch the next flight and bring me back home. I know they are capable of that. So I did not say a word to anyone. I looked up abortion facility here.

[00:52:19] One month into this country, I had friends from work and they are all Indian friends. I can't tell them. I know they would be the first person to contact my family. Right. It's a tight-knit community. Yes. For them, family values take precedence over anything.

[00:52:39] I found an abortion facility here and I went and got an abortion all alone. It was nerve-wracking, both the process and dealing with Americans for the first time. Sure. I was dealing with it alone. I didn't have anyone to even talk about it.

[00:53:04] I did the same thing I did years ago. I dug another deep pit, pit very deep that I could never go back to find it. I buried this second child in that deep pit.

[00:53:23] After this happened, my husband was in talking terms with me but he was constantly threatening me to come back to India. When I did not oblige, he filed for divorce. I was going to an Indian church during this season.

[00:53:42] When they found out that I was going through a divorce, they didn't want me in the church. Like I said, for Indians, family, at least Indians I've interacted with, family values come above everything.

[00:53:57] The pastor came and told me, I can't teach children in this church, fourth and fifth graders. He said, I can't teach them because I'm a bad influence. I can't come to the church anymore because I set a negative example for the families in the church.

[00:54:14] I cannot say that divorce is okay. So he asked me to leave and I left the church very angry with the people around me, with no support system. I had friends who I worked with but I couldn't be real with them.

[00:54:34] Having no family to back me up or even tell them what's going on, I was in the verge of giving up faith, like completely turning agnostic, completely stopping to believe in Jesus. It all seemed like a show to me.

[00:54:56] Church is supposed to be like a hospital, but you want people to put up a good face when you go to church. You want perfect looking families and women with good values, but people who come broken like me, you're not willing to receive and show mercy.

[00:55:18] I'm like, I don't want church. I don't want a God who treats me like that. I think I completed a year in this country by then and my parents were in very, very

[00:55:33] deep trouble money-wise because they had borrowed a lot of money for dowry from me and from my sister by then. My arranged marriage was a transaction of money, assets and me. I was one among the other objects, that's all.

[00:55:56] So that transaction costed them a lot of money and they couldn't pay back the banks. The banks were closing on them and it came to a point where my dad was about to go to jail. You know how the family honor comes into play again?

[00:56:15] They manipulated me that dad was about to go to jail and so they both were ready to commit suicide rather than taking that shame. They were like, it was for your wedding, we borrowed all this. Now look at our fate. I'm like, okay.

[00:56:32] I told them, they both were crying telling me that they were going to commit suicide and I told them, don't. I will help you. I will send you the money. I'm working here. I don't have a family. I will help you to come out of this.

[00:56:55] The Indian family structure is like parents, they raise you up and then they put this guilt on you to take care of them. Taking care of out of love is one thing, but in my case it was that guilt that was put on me.

[00:57:11] That they did it for my happiness and now they are struggling. After that phone call and just looking back at my life, I hit rock bottom. I was like a single person in this whole world. I felt like loneliness was the only friend I had.

[00:57:35] You couldn't be real with anyone. When I hit that, I felt it was time for me to say goodbye to God once and for all. My work was at downtown in the city so I would drive past 75 every day and that's when I

[00:57:55] saw this huge red church in the highway. Every day I would drive, I would look at the church and I would just cough. I'm like, okay, there you are. Good. I would pay attention and then brush it off. That church came to my mind.

[00:58:15] I'm like, you're standing high and mighty in the road. Let's have a one-to-one and close it once and for all. Make your peace with it. Make your peace with it and move on.

[00:58:28] I came to a point where hereafter whatever happens to me is because I decide and not because you have power over my life. Because I was done trusting in people and I want to be done trusting in God.

[00:58:44] During this time, the aunt who I used to go to pray to, she passed away. So I'm like, fine. My family and my friends, they all kept speaking about God to me and I didn't want to hear about it.

[00:58:59] I'm like, God was not there when I was going through my dark times. I don't want him anymore. I did everything religiously since my family started going to church. I went to catechism classes, I took baptism, took the communion bread, everything we did.

[00:59:14] I'm like, okay, it's time to come close our deal. So I walked into the Church of the Apostles and it was a Good Friday service. I had no idea it was a Good Friday service. I just wanted to walk in.

[00:59:27] There was not many crowd, but the person who was sharing the word that evening was talking about the words of Jesus on the cross. I was sitting very away from everyone. I was just looking at this stained glass window and the cross there and constantly staring

[00:59:47] at it and asking God a lot of questions. I came here to say goodbye to you, but before I say that, I want to ask you some questions. Where were you when my parents abused me? Where were you when those men abused me?

[01:00:08] Where were you when I was struggling and writhing in pain from all the beatings I took from my mother? Where were you when I was starving without food and water? Where were you when I had to abort my two kids? And where are you now in my life?

[01:00:37] Are you even there? Are you even looking at me? I asked all these questions and then the man in the pulpit, he said, they don't know what they are doing. That was the word of Christ. And that broke me. Father, forgive them.

[01:00:59] They don't know what they are doing. It was as if my mind was opened and I actually understood that word. That is how I felt. It is like I am standing in front of Jesus and I'm asking him all these questions and

[01:01:19] Jesus is telling to the Father that Father, forgive them because they didn't know what they were doing. I saw him standing there and interceding for me. That was a moment I was actually broken. I felt I was broken, but I was actually broken.

[01:01:44] And since then is when my journey started, where Jesus was taking each broken piece of mine and he started gluing it back, gluing it back one by one. My life following that day at Church of the Apostles changed. I started attending church every Sunday.

[01:02:09] I would sit in the very back on the balcony. I wouldn't talk to anybody because I had a lot of church wounds still. I was afraid that if people really know who I am, that they wouldn't want me. Just as your previous experience. Exactly.

[01:02:28] That's how I never even had friends because once they know about me and all the things I've done, they wouldn't want to be my friend. Coming to church for two years like that, just sitting in the balcony quietly, I still

[01:02:46] remember there was this couple, an American couple who would sit on the balcony. They noticed me that I'm an Indian from my look and he would try to come to talk to me telling, I went to India. I have been there. Where are you from?

[01:03:03] I didn't want to talk to him. Yeah, and especially an older man. I would give all false information to him and I would just try to avoid. And then I switched places again after that. I didn't want to talk to anyone.

[01:03:21] My walk with the church started when I did Christianity examines by Dr. J. I went to that session and in my table, there was this young girl who sat next to me and she invited me to this ministry in church called 20s and 30s.

[01:03:39] And she told me that they met on Thursdays and she told me that people of my age group congregate there and there is free food. I could come and just hang out. I said, okay, I will give it a try. But I didn't go.

[01:03:55] And then that class went on for four weeks and in the fourth week, she saw me again and she was, I didn't see you coming. Are you afraid? I can come with you. And then I'm like, okay, now she's going to keep asking me.

[01:04:09] So let me just go for once and show my face. And it was summer of 2018. That was the first Thursday I showed up at 20s and 30s. And the first exposure for me there was, there was this person who was sharing his testimony

[01:04:35] about his walk in his life and all the wounds that he had growing up and all the mistakes that he did along the way and how when he came to the Lord, the Lord helped him recover, restore.

[01:04:54] And he spoke about this program called Living Waters that happens in Church of the Apostles and his journey with that program and how it helped in his healing. I came honestly expecting some preaching like, stay pure, stay safe. Do's and don'ts. Yeah. Don't sin.

[01:05:18] Don't bring shame on your family. That is what I came expecting. But then what I saw, my first experience was this man who was broken and how repentance and confession helped him in his restoration journey and how the Lord used that. That was not what I expected.

[01:05:43] And then I kept coming over every Thursday. I was very shy, so I wouldn't talk to anybody. The leaders of that program, Lauren and Jeremy, they were very warm and welcoming. There were days where I told to Lauren, I'm terrified of table discussions.

[01:06:02] I just want to get up and leave. I don't want to talk about anything when people want me to talk about it. And I remember Lauren telling me, you don't have to talk. It's okay to not share anything. Just sit. Don't feel pressured.

[01:06:17] And that made me keep coming back and I started doing Living Waters that fall. And it was in that program where I even came to know that one can talk about their feelings. One can talk about what they've been through and not be judged for it.

[01:06:43] That was so foreign to me. It was like... Yeah, sure. That's a totally new concept for you. Really? You can be real? You can be yourself and not be judged and be shown mercy and loved instead? I thought only God does that.

[01:07:03] That was the community where I saw people being imitators of Christ, showing mercy because they were shown mercy. And that was the platform where I first spoke about, shared in my small group about the sex abuse that I had as a child and as a teenager.

[01:07:31] In my attempt for suicide, my life with my abusive parents and my abortions. It didn't happen like in one day. I just momented it all out. It didn't happen that way. I had to slowly speak about one after the other.

[01:07:53] And then when I felt safe about one thing that I shared, and then I opened up about the other. And it's not just confession. It was prayer, the power of prayer. The women in that ministry, they touched my shoulder when I shared and they cried with

[01:08:15] me and they prayed with me. And after they prayed, they hugged me and they told me, you are free now sister from this sin that has been burdening you because you just dropped that bag of weight down.

[01:08:35] And they do this thing in Living Waters where you have this huge cross in the middle of the room and where there's a ministry time where you walk up to that cross. And throughout the program, you do several activities.

[01:08:52] One of the things that were powerful to me was one of the day I wrote all my sins in a piece of paper and I stuck it to the cross and I painted red paint over it. And then it was all banished. I couldn't see that spoke.

[01:09:10] That spoke like volumes to me. And then there was another day where I confessed all my sins written, the dark, dark, deep secret of abortion. I wrote it in the paper and I tore it.

[01:09:25] I asked my leader to burn it for me because that day when I opened up, it was, you know the pit I told you I dug so deep that I couldn't go back to it? The Lord helped me find that pit. He helped me dig.

[01:09:44] And when I reached that pit, he asked me to give those babies to him. And that is what I did. I took those babies I buried and I gave it to Jesus. And I told him, Lord, I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do.

[01:10:05] I didn't have another option. The world would kill me if I had it at those times. I am sorry. And he told me he understood. I felt that peace after that. The Lord gave me this overwhelming peace after that, that I never had for many years, especially

[01:10:36] the first abortion I carried for nine years in my heart before I could even speak about it. In that walk, I was able to shed my fear and my guilt and my shame.

[01:10:51] Jonathan, if only I knew there were options or if only I had a safe place, life would have been different for me. Living Waters played a huge role in my healing. I was able to release my past.

[01:11:13] I was able to call sin for sin and not mask it. I was able to release my parents to the Lord. That was huge. I was able to work on forgiving them, which I never thought I will ever come to a place to do that.

[01:11:37] Above everything, I was able to forgive myself because when all this is said and done, there was one thing that I still dealt with myself. I couldn't forgive me for doing what I did. And when Jesus said, it is all paid for, it is capital A-L-L.

[01:11:59] And that took a while for me to understand and realize that. The Church of the Apostles also gave me avenues where I could be real about myself after this program, share my story with my 20s and 30s group with the women's Bible study and in Living Waters.

[01:12:23] I went back to Living Waters to give back because I know there are women like me out there, especially women from my country who don't know that there is a place, a safe place

[01:12:40] where you can talk about your deep, dark sins and receive forgiveness and life in exchange, new life. A life of freedom where you walk without the weight of that sin on your shoulder.

[01:12:57] The years following that, I was able to go back to my family and talk to them in a way that I never talked before. I never shared all this with my family. Till today, nobody from my family knows all this.

[01:13:14] But I was able to have a relationship with them because deep down, I know the Lord has forgiven my sins because He has been merciful to me. I want to be merciful to the people who didn't show mercy to me.

[01:13:30] Today I am in a talking relationship with my family. I have this church that loves me for who I really am without judging me for the sins I made. Today, the Lord has given me the grace and the courage to receive a second chance in marriage.

[01:13:56] You remember the guy I told you who shared a story the first night I walked into twenties and thirties? That guy, he approached me years later telling me that he wants to date me.

[01:14:12] It was a huge walk of faith for me because I had trouble trusting men, looking at the pattern that men worked in my life. Starting from my home, starting from my father, my brother, my relatives, it was very difficult for me to trust men.

[01:14:34] But the more I trusted the Lord, He showed me how He could love me through another human being. Today I'm married to this wonderful man who loves the Lord and who treats me like I am a child of God, like I am God's child and He loves me.

[01:15:00] That is not what I got in my life before, either in my parental home or in my previous marriage. Looking back, there were times where I thought, my life is done, dusted, I'm going to go to

[01:15:18] grave carrying all this weight of sin and there is no second chance. The Lord used this country, this church, this ministry, this people as His hands and feet to touch this one person like me who is a gazillion in that from the third world and

[01:15:46] show me grace and mercy and tell me that there is a second life, the life walking with the Lord, being a light on top of the city that shows to other people that here is the way, walk in it. The Lord is using me today for that.

[01:16:08] There are days I'm really afraid to talk to people from my culture, especially if I see them in church. That has been a fear for me and I've shared it with some of my American friends because I'm afraid they would judge me. All those old ways of thinking.

[01:16:24] All the ways that I would be spun back into that vicious cyclone of culture. But today when I see an Indian in the church, I am able to go up to them and greet them in the Lord and welcome them to the church.

[01:16:44] I did that this past month. That spoke to me that how much the Lord has healed me and how He is helping me to live that healing. This is one thing I was discussing with my husband recently with events that's recently happening in this country.

[01:17:09] If I had a choice, if I had a safe place, life would have been different for me. There are women there who don't know that there is a safe place or church has not been a safe place in the past.

[01:17:25] For me, church has not been a safe place in the past. Church wanted me out. But there was also another church. There was also a church like the Church of the Apostles that welcomed me, that it is okay for you to speak about it and to receive healing.

[01:17:45] If only women have that. I think it will change lives, Jonathan. Well, thank you so much for being so forthright and being willing to talk about those difficult areas. Just what you talked about, it's that the forgiveness that you received, the mercy that

[01:18:05] you've received has now provided you a voice and an outlet for that, which our hope is that hopefully someone listening to this may be helped by what you just said, especially as we're thinking about finding that community of believers and receiving the forgiveness

[01:18:26] and the mercy that Christ has shown us. For those who maybe have that in their past and aren't living that out in that capacity, that the Lord would raise them up to do that as well because we are called to do that for one another.

[01:18:44] And so I want to say thank you. I know we're protecting your identity, so I won't say your name, but I'm very grateful and I'm very grateful for your husband. And my prayer is that the Lord would continue to bless you both in the days, weeks, months,

[01:19:01] years, generations ahead. Thank you for being on Candid Conversations. Thank you, Jonathan. Candid is a podcast from Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Don't forget to connect with our social media pages on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

[01:19:16] And subscribe to Candid Conversations on your favorite podcast platform so that you never miss an episode. While there, please leave a review. It does help people to find us. As always, thank you for listening to and sharing this episode.