WHAT JESUS MEANS TO ME – HOW JESUS’ ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD AND INTO MY LIFE CHANGED ME

JESUS — THEN, NOW AND FOREVER IN MY LIFE 

Arunima Gomes 

Bhubaneswar, INDIA 

I have been told that my life is nothing short of a Bollywood (the Indian film industry) movie. I was born into a Hindu family to parents who were academics and strict. From being abused when I was five and six, shame entered early into my life. During my teen years we moved to a big city from a small one and I somehow was always the one who was  getting into trouble. I was failing to live up to expected standards of life. I would mostly feel like I did not know how to fit in and was not smart enough to know my way out of the troubles of life .

The years at college went by with more shame added when my parents decided to enroll me in a not-so-cool college as compared to all my friends, as they felt I would mess up my life and fall into bad company.  As I graduated from college and started University, I got initiated into the world of men. Prior to this I had attended an all girls’ school and girls’ college as is sometimes very common in India. My first relationship ever was with a married man who was the owner of a company I took up a job in. Suddenly life started spiraling out of control when it came to men. Soon I went from one relationship to another, from one heartbreak to another. I now started feeling dirty and discouraged to the extent that I was ready to die.

In the midst of all this, God was reaching out to me. I was invited to our Church twice when I had just started University and I let both those invitations pass by.

But on one particular day when I was ready to die, I was stopped on a very busy road in my city of Kolkata and was invited by two sisters to a women’s day program titled “Friends.” Jesus was not willing to wait anymore. I started attending Church. I soon started studying the Bible. With a major and Masters in English Literature and having read Milton and Blake at college, I approached my Bible studies as an exercise of adding to my knowledge.

I for sure did not know what was in store for me as I progressed from one study to the other in complete agreement to what I was learning. I agreed without any questions to the fact that God was not an idol even though I had practiced idolatry for 20 years out of the 24 years of my life. I was falling in love with Jesus, having found the answer to my freedom from my uncleanness. I was so sure that I wanted to follow Jesus the rest of my life. I was standing up to the beatings that I was receiving at home from my angry parents and brother who were shocked at my newfound “madness.” I was by now a lecturer at a college, teaching graduate students part-time and getting beaten up at home for going to church and wanting to become a Christian.

I did get baptized into Christ on a wonderful day in March 2000. I believed this was a new beginning for me, that all my sins were washed away and I would be the good girl that I always longed to be. I became a leader in the Church and started interning in the ministry. 

But the idea of being a good girl would soon be shattered as I quickly went back to some of my sins and this time there were more lies and more shame – my battle each day would not be about righteous Christian living but how could I cover up my weaknesses and my shame as a result of my sins.

But God was not ready to leave me yet.

God gave me the courage to own up to what my life was all about. Sisters helped me connect to this ever elusive concept of the Grace of Jesus in my life and were patient enough to teach me that Jesus  was not going to leave me in this distraught and messed up state. I almost lost my faith and would only beg God to not leave me and He did not.

Since that time I have lived in the mercy of building my faith again in Jesus, signing up to lead a Church planting along with my husband to one of the most persecuted states in India. I have fallen many times and have become aware of my weaknesses as a Christian, a church leader, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a wife, a mom. Every time my weaknesses come into light, my shame gets triggered, and yet when I look at the face of Jesus and remember all the different instances of Jesus interacting with the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-26) or the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1- 11) I receive hope. A kind of hope where there is no condemnation but a firm exhortation to change.

Jesus’s words to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9 – “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” — gives me the comfort and peace I often need on bad days. It helps me get my perspective right that my identity does not have to come from my accomplishments, my health, wealth or wisdom but that the infinite grace and mercy of Jesus is enough for me and my security. I can freely boast about my weaknesses without the arrogance of pretending to be perfect and yet having the right balance of trying to strive for righteous living. I can also depend on the power of Jesus to help me through my weaknesses by being vulnerable without being ashamed.

Paul’s response in verses 9 – 10 gives me the much needed encouragement that I know I need both now and forever – “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Questions for Reflection :

1.     What is the greatest weakness that you are currently struggling with in your life?

2.     How are you coping with this weakness or weaknesses?

3.     What would it take for you to draw into the grace that Jesus has to offer in that particular area that you are most weak in?