Poverty of the prosperity gospel

I heard the pastor say Jesus can make you rich

That sounded good to my ears until I saw the hitch

Sow that faith offering buddy, and see the miracle

Soon the pastor owned a Bentley & I was still on my cycle.

I am sure many of us have come across this sales pitch where Jesus is portrayed as this money vending machine, waiting to make you wealthy, totally healthy and of course provide you with that dream car you have always wanted since your childhood.

The Lord wants you to be rich, you are the king’s sons and daughters, no father wants their children to be poor and you could name it and claim it, all it takes is faith, sow that faith offering and see your miracle, send that money and get out of your credit card debts.

I once happened to be in a church in a particular city in our country, where the pastor on one of the Sundays removed his watch and gave it away to a congregation member. You may wonder why I mention that. I do it only because he mentioned from the stage the brand – Louis Vuitton and the cost of the watch – Rs. 500000 (No it is not a typo, 5 lakhs).  There are also those that drive around in BMWs and Audis on our very Indian roads.  In a country where majority are poor this kind of selfish extravagance from those that claim to represent the One who said Blessed are the poor is not only unbecoming.

This is the kind of stuff that has taken over many quarters of Christendom which is not only an embarrassment for the cause of Christ but an opportunity for the unbeliever to mock such extravagance in the name of God. Religion as a great business opportunity is fairly an old idea. During the time of Jesus, He was furious with those who in the name of religion were filling their own coffers in the temple. I remember Ravi Zacharias mention how he found an atheist in the seminary. On enquiring why he was there, he quips ‘ there is a lot of money in the god business’.  The Bible says that the ‘love of money is the root of all evil’ and today we have many shepherds in the pulpit who love just that and who influences the sheep also to do just that.

The good news of salvation is being turned to the good news of prosperity. From focusing on holiness and sanctification, it has become all about housing and personal satisfaction. From cherishing and considering Jesus your greatest treasure, the focus is on earthly treasures. From focusing on eternal benefits and spiritual fruit, the focus is on temporal comforts and monetary benefits.  This is not only foreign to the Bible but I think it marks the start of the warning where in the last days people will itch to hear such things.

Before I go further, it is crucial for us to look at the words our Lord spoke on the subject of earthly wealth. Jesus said, DO NOT Store up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and but store up treasures in heaven. The prosperity gospel encourages you to do exactly the opposite. You are filled with an expectation to become rich and to store up treasures. To a young man who was really wealthy Jesus says go sell your pocession and give to the poor. This is after Jesus diagnosed his problem which was a love for money. He then goes on to tell us in another occasion, it is really difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

And one of the most solemn warnings Jesus gives is about serving two masters. God and mammon. He presented money as being his greatest opponent, not even satan. It was very clear, one had to decide if He would set his mind on being rich on this earth or will set his mind on being rich towards God. It is noteworthy that in the parable of the sower, the third group of people were those who gave up their faith due to the deceitfulness of riches.

These are in the scripture as an important warning for us to heed.

The prosperity gospel, almost always makes it sound as though to be poor is to be under a curse or you lack God’s favour. And financial prosperity is almost always looked at as a favour from God.

The  The promise in the scripture is that our needs will be met.  Paul says if we have food and shelter we shall be content.

There are rich Christians and there are poor Christians. There are healthy Christian and unhealthy Christians.

As much as the scripture is a balm to our souls and the living word that bring forth spiritual fruit in our lives, misquoted, misapplied and misused the same word could result in it being a burden impossible to bear and a harbinger of misery for the human soul. And let us be warned – many have sold their souls to the god of this world and suffered shame.

Story of Amruthma

Would I pick up an old destitute woman with a broken arm who has been lying on the roadside in her own faeces for hours covered with flies?

Under normal circumstances, I would have just walked past such a repulsive sight. But that morning on 7th May 2015, I was very unsettled after seeing her lie there. 

Cycling on my usual route to buy milk that morning I saw her lying on the side of the road barely able to move. Her face was covered with the pallu of her dirty, muddied saree and she was feebly fanning away the flies that were swarming below her waist and hovering over her face with a hand towel. My curiosity got the better of me and I stopped and tried to find out from the onlookers and some of the families living there who she was. No one seemed to know. It seemed like she was from a different place altogether. All they knew was that she had been loitering around that area for a couple of days and now she was lying there. I felt sorry for her but was not sure what else could be done. And so in a few minutes I was on the road again cycling back home with the milk can dangling from the handle bars.

If you have lived in India this would not be a rare scene you encounter. Destitute people on the roadside is more common than a German shepherd on the road. Hence, after a momentary sympathetic stare and a “what can I do” thought, I tried to forget what I had just seen. But the thought about the old woman refused to leave my mind and there was already a conversation going on in my head. One part of me was saying, I should have done something about the lady while the other reminded me there was practically nothing I could have done. I thought of Jesus and my Christian responsibility while the story of the Good Samaritan kept flashing through my mind. It’s fine, quipped the other voice in my head, there are thousands of such people in the country who are homeless dying on the road side; it is not going to make any difference helping one person. But by the time I reached home, I had made up my mind. I knew I had to do something this time. I reminded myself that the old woman is also made in the image of God, has intrinsic worth and dignity and is precious in the sight of God.

I told Blodwen, my wife what I saw and she immediately said I should bring her to the hospital. That encouraged me further and so I rushed to tell my doctor friend Jeevan who lived on the same campus as us that I was going to bring the old woman to the hospital. He did not discourage me either. So there I was back on the road again, about to attempt something for the first time in my life.

She was still lying there in the same state. I quickly told the onlookers that I was going to take her to the hospital and went to hire a sagadi (a cycle cart which is used to transport goods as well as patients in rural areas). After looking around for some time, I found a sagadi but the moment the sagadiwalla saw the state of the old woman he said he would not take her in his sagadi.

So then I decided it would be best to get her cleaned up and changed before getting another sagadi. I asked some of the ladies standing around if they could help wash her. Not only were they not willing but they refused to even touch her. I was a bit embarrassed to help the woman undress and get her washed. But now there was no option left. One of the ladies said she could give me a saree and an underskirt.  So she brought the clothes from her home and some women held out the saree on the side of the road for cover. I slowly helped the woman sit up and then stand. The smell that came from her made me want to throw up a couple of times. She had a bad case of diarrhoea and she was just skin and bones. I helped her take off her clothes and poured water over her to clean up the faeces that was caked all over her legs. Once that was done, I helped her drape the saree and then went to fetch another sagadi. This time the sagadiwalla that came agreed to take her and we brought her to the hospital.

Since she was in such a bad state, we did not want her to be in the main ward where there were other patients. We made a bed for her in another room that was not being used. She was so exhausted that she was hardly able to speak. The doctors started her on IV fluids and medicines. She barely knew any Hindi and the only thing we found out was her name – Amruthma.

The first day Amruthma kept mentioning a place called Prachi. None of us had heard of that place before. Later that night, I googled the place and found out it was in Gujarat. She was probably speaking Gujarati. The next day our guess was confirmed and so we crossed the first hurdle. She was indeed Gujarati. Two of our staff knew Gujarati and they helped us understand what she was trying to communicate. She was a bit disoriented but mentioned that she had sons living in Mumbai and she had gone to meet one of them as he was unwell. She had then lost her way. She also mentioned that some vehicle had come and hit her on the left arm and that is how it had fractured.

Her condition was improving with the medication and within two days she was moved to the ward. In the meantime she was bathed, changed and fed. It was so encouraging to see many of the staff at the hospital come alongside and serve Amruthma. One of them washed her grubby feet, one oiled her hair, another one bathed her, one of them brought her food.

As the days went by, except for the fracture, Amruthma’s condition had improved. But I was in a dilemma as I had no clue how to take this forward. I had tried finding out if an old age home in Varanasi would take her in but they refused. Thoughts of starting even a destitute home crossed my mind but that was a huge project. So she continued to stay in the hospital.

Amruthma loved her tea with bread to dip into it. As I carried food and tea every day for her, many in the hospital would ask me what I planned to do with her. No plans yet used to be my reply. We kept enquiring about her family and relatives hoping to find out something that might help us help her. During one such conversation, she mentioned that her nephews stayed in a place called Veraval. Thanks again to google, I found out Veraval was a temple town where the famous Somnath temple was located. On searching further, I also found out that there was a Veraval group on Facebook with over seven thousand members. I joined the group and quickly posted details about Amruthma, seeking help from the group. But there was no response except some advice to translate the post into Gujarati and re-post it.

So days went by without any progress and we kept praying to the Lord to make a way. Then almost a week later, I got a message on facebook from someone named Nazir saying he saw my post and he would do whatever possible to trace the whereabouts of Amruthma’s relatives. What made this even more interesting is that Nazir was not even part of the Veraval group but had chanced upon my post while trying to post an advertisement on the group for the computer institute he ran. God does work in mysterious ways.

Amazing as it sounds, just two days later, I received a call from a railway policeman in Veraval asking about Amruthma. Apparently, she had been missing for five months and the complaint was under the jurisdiction of his police station. Not long after, I had a whatsapp message from him with a photograph of Amruthma and the missing complaint that was lodged there. He was excited and relieved to know she was safe and mentioned how they had searched all over to find her. Soon I had calls coming from various relatives of Amruthma to enquire about her. Her nephew called to say they would come in the next three days to take her home.

And thus, on May 21st, her son and two of her nephews arrived at the hospital. It was indeed an emotional moment when she was reunited with her son and nephews. That was also the second time I saw her cry. The first time was when my wife hugged her goodbye that morning. . Amruthma had sat on a train on 1 January 2015 to go to Mumbai from Veraval. They had not heard from her since that day. She had lived on the road side in different places for over four months before landing at Kachhwa in Uttar Padesh.  Her son and nephews had no words to thank us.

(Amruthma with her son) (with her nephews)

And I had no words to thank my Lord for all this.

Even as they walked out of the hospital with Amruthma that day, I could not but pause for a moment and think of the ways of God who uses unworthy servants to help find a home for the lost and the wounded. But I also dread to think how things would have transpired if I had ignored that still small voice within me that morning on the 7th of May 2015.

Motherhood- the Great Sanctifier

Growing up watching Mums with their kids, I always wondered what kind of a mother I’d be. I saw all kinds. Frustrated Moms, Serene Moms, Methodical Moms, Funny Moms, Angry Moms, Exhausted Moms. Of course, you will agree that these are not just labels but phases that probably every mother goes through. I couldn’t wait to start my journey into this stage of life but I was also afraid. Very very afraid. What if I messed it up? What if the kid didn’t like me? I was mortally terrified of little babies. Still am. I have never voluntarily carried a baby that was not my own. They tend to sense me and wail.

So when I found myself pregnant in the second month after our wedding, I was ecstatic. S and I did not want to wait to have kids. We were thrilled with the idea of a large family. I still remember our first ultrasound and the wonder I felt seeing the tiny speck floating in a little bag and knowing that the speck was a baby. Thinking about it now, I am even more in awe, knowing that the speck was in fact the amazing little person that is Prarthna Hannah, my firstborn. That initial disbelief and ecstasy was quite short-lived however. Almost from the next day, I began throwing up incessantly. My body was reacting violently to the little human growing within me. I suffered pain, sleepless nights with my head slung over the bed pointed at the ever-present disgusting bucket, feeling hungry and thirsty but unable to keep anything down. Six hospital admissions where I’d routinely need to be given sedatives and painkillers. No oral intake(food or water)  for at least the first two to three days. Oh how sweet that first bottle cap of water used to taste in my mouth after not a drop. I’d be pricked for intravenous fluids so many times that I’d run out of veins. I almost always returned home from hospitalizations with purple marks on my arms. As the baby grew, I walked funnier. It was uncomfortable to be in any position for a continuous stretch. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t lie down. Nights were spent tossing from one side to the other, of course in between the incessant trips to the bathroom.

And then one day that pain starts and you know there’s no turning back. That was always such a scary moment for me. I knew the pain would just increase and well, I am a chicken. S asked me once what contractions feel like at its peak. I told him they felt like somebody was trying to kill you from the inside out. Finally, I would feel the urge to push and just when you feel like it’s impossible, the baby’s head begins to crown and before you know it, she’s out! Hurray! What a surge of relief and joy!

Now before I go on any further, a disclaimer. For those of you Moms that had tougher pregnancies and are thinking “Psssh! She thinks she suffered?” and for those who had relatively comfortable pregnancies and are thinking “I may not have had a difficult pregnancy, but so what? I’ve struggled too!” and for those who are not mothers who are thinking, “So we’re not being sanctified?!!!”, this is my experience from the way my life has run its course till now.

Ok so let’s move on. That first night after the baby’s born. Two words. Not nice. Prarthna woke up every fifteen minutes (that’s what it felt like at least) and I’d feed her till she dropped off and then fall back in exhaustion only to be woken up a few minutes later. Then comes the disgusting diaper changing routine. So much stinkiness from something so small. Of course, the baby settles down to a feeding schedule soon enough and you get used to the duties you have to perform. But, a year later, or even a couple of months later you are going to sit down and wonder at how much you’ve changed. How much this baby has changed you without even realizing it. If you haven’t taken a moment to think about the growth in”you” pre and post-baby, I’d encourage you to sit down and do it now.

Let me share with you the things I learnt.

I learnt to wake up early. This may seem like a silly little thing to many of you but I’m one of those people who loves to get up when they want to get up. It was easy enough when it was just S and I. He wanted breakfast on the table by 8:30 am every morning. That was his only morning demand. So I’d tumble out of bed at 8 am and stumble into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and stare at the shelves till I got an epiphany of what to make. Which was usually upma or pancakes or dosa for three days till the batter got over. Easy-peasy. Once prarthu dear came along it was a whole different ball game. Her first feeding was scheduled for 6 am. I would feed her for 30 minutes then change her diaper and put her down to play and fall asleep. By this time, it was usually 7 am and there was no point in going back to bed.

I learnt to put another’s interests first. Again, I know there are Moms out there who probably love being selfless, but I learnt that it was really hard for me to not be selfish. In the beginning, Prarthna was on a 2 and ½ hour schedule, which meant I was on call every 2 ½ hours of the day. My day. I had to drop whatever I was doing, change my plans, curb my desires and sit still for a whole 30 minutes and feed the baby. I’ve seen so many Mums who enjoy breast feeding their babies and find it bonds them. I wish I were one of them. I’ve learnt that I bond with my babies in other ways but definitely not for those 30 minutes when the baby is just thinking “food, food, food” and I’m thinking “Is the clock broken? Why isn’t the minute hand moving?” And since we chose to use cloth nappies during the day, I had to rush in every twenty minutes or so and change the baby so she could sleep. I found that between taking care of a baby’s needs and doing the housework, I didn’t have much time for anything else, which brings me to the next thing I learnt.

I learnt to plan my day better. Ahhh! Another thing that comes naturally to some of you lucky folks! I’m as unplanned and happy-go-lucky as they come. I am time-unconscious and will just do things as and when the need presents itself with some urgency. But with a little one that needed to be fed almost every three hours and cooking, tidying up, laundry etc. to be done too, I had to sit down and plan    my day so that I had enough time to get everything done. The result was that I was soon able to maintain a regular time during which I could have my quiet-time (something which I’d been missing for a while and which did wonders for me and the quality of my life) as well as time to do whatever I wanted, which was usually crochet.

I also learnt to be organized. Stop rolling your eyes, you perfect, organized women! Organizational skills are not something I’ve been known for in my growing up years or even as an adult for that matter. My Mom often claimed that she’d not be surprised to find a snake living in the mess that called itself my room. I am perfectly capable of existing joyfully in mess. I have met women who say they can’t fall asleep on a messy bed. One of my friends once told me that she can’t sleep if there are dirty dishes in her sink. When I hear things like that, all I can do is hang my head in shame. I can sleep anywhere, independent of the state of my kitchen or the rest of my house for that matter. But unfortunately, it so happens that babies need a lot of stuff that needs to be handy at a second’s notice. That doesn’t give you the luxury of scratching your head and then spending the rest of the day turning the entire house upside down to find it. You need to know where it is and you need to get it fast. Socks, Nappies, Blankets, Towels, Sippy cup, Bottle, Caps, Wet wipes, Hair clips, Soap, Creams, Medicines. All need to be where it should be. A place for everything and everything in its place. Not because that’s the way I like it but simply for the sake of my sanity.

I learnt to control my temper and be patient. When your child spits up on the clothes you’ve just changed him into. Spills all the milk in his glass on the carpet on clumsy feet. Tears a page of your Bible with baby fingers. Breaks that porcelain figurine you’ve had since you were a teenager. Accidentally. Innocently. Unrebelliously. When everything inside wants to yell or scream or spank, I learnt to heed to voice of the Holy Spirit, bite my tongue, take a deep breath, compose myself and clean up the mess and comfort the sorry child. (And of course, these situations teach you the importance of bibs, getting the child to sit down and drink in front of you and keeping your Bible out of reach.

I learnt to lean on God. Holding a wailing baby that refuses to be comforted in the middle of the night, not knowing what he/she wants. Wishing the baby would just calm down because your back is killing you and you desperately need to get some sleep. It’s in these instances and many more such that I learnt to just cry out to the Lord for wisdom that I didn’t have, for grace that I so needed. And I have never found Him unheeding. The Lord who gently leads those that are with young, I believe, will always hear the cry of the weak mother who needs strength to be the mother He wants her to be. It is in His presence that I’ve found comfort, peace and strength to press on.

I learnt to do all this joyfully. This was not so much something I worked at, as it was a gift from God. I could have done all this, been forced to change, been forced to give up the things I wanted to do and been bitter about it. I could have viewed my children with regret thinking of all the things I might have accomplished if they weren’t around. But I found that all the changes wrought in me were good changes. They made me a better person, a stronger person than I’d been. The duties of a mother are strenuous, but knowing that you are investing actively into the making of an individual is so satisfying. With perseverance, I am striving to build up a young lady and young man (and soon another little somebody) who are grounded in the truth and will be a source of comfort and blessing to this suffering world.

Gone are my happy-go-lucky days. When I could do as I pleased and say as I pleased. When I was self-assured and thought I could do anything on my own strength. When I had nobody who depended on me completely. I was a free bird soaring in the blue, blue skies. Oh but that bird had no aim, no purpose. That bird was selfish. That bird did not do anything to impact anyone in any significant way. And I can honestly say I have no regrets. Only a great joy in knowing that through motherhood, God is still working on me, whittling away at the harsh edges, smoothing away the unnecessaries, until He is happy with the finished product that I will one day be.

My Prayer for Prarthna

I have a daughter.

She just turned three a few weeks ago. I often look at her and wonder in my heart just who she will become. I see her now. Intensely sharp. Not missing anything going on around her. So very eager to learn new things. Emotionally complex and deep. Responsible for her younger siblings and a born worrier. Shy in the presence of company but such a talker when in her comfort zone. So feminine and graceful (sometimes!). I see her thoughts zipping past through her mind as they reflect in her eyes.

And I wonder….

Just who will she become? And then I come to the question- “Who do I want her to become?”

This is not about writing my own unachieved dreams onto my child’s life. This is about parenting intentionally. The Bible says- “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” And if I who have been entrusted with her life, do not think these thoughts and train her with purpose to be who she was meant to be, who will? Who else (except her Dad) would care enough to lovingly invest time to shape her and fill her mind and heart with good things?

And when I think of it, the training I want to give her is tripartite. I want to train her mind, her body and her heart.

Her Mind

Prarthna’s mind is a teacher’s dream (I confess I stand on biased ground as her mother). I love the glee in her face when I ask her if she wants to learn something new. She grasps things very quickly and they stay with her. She seems to remember everything. Even things that we feel were obscure. And she learns both good and bad with equal fervour.

As her parent, I’ve got to actively sift out the bad and nurture the good, adding to it more good that she needs to learn.

In this, I’ve realized how important it is to explain to a child the reason why something is bad and mustn’t be done. And even why something is good and should be practiced.

Too often, we find ourselves continuing to do things that are meaningless or downright harmful simply because our parents and other older folk said so. Doing things without thinking on why we do it promotes thoughtlessness in other aspects of our lives too. We have been given minds not to live programmed existences but to think and ponder and work things out and then decide intelligently whether it’s right or wrong. This seeking and searching attitude needs to permeate into every aspect of our lives and build in us a love and a yearning for the truth.

This is what I want for Prarthna’s mind.

Today, too many little girls are deadening their minds with unprofitable thoughts that are designed to make them shallow, unthinking, self-seeking dolls. Or are trained sharply to viciously compete and get ahead no matter what the cost. To be the best in this “world of men”. I want neither of these for my daughter.

I want her to think. Yes, to think wisely, but to also think in love. To put others before herself. To think about how she can help others rather than just help herself and satisfy her own desires.

To have the kind of mind Paul talks about in the Bible when he urges-“…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” (Phil 4:8)

Her Body

Where do I start?

Tiny, little girls with painted lips and eyes. Flipping ironed, permed or highlighted hair. Tottering along in kiddie heels and wearing barely there midriff baring, strapless, backless, impossibly short clothing that we adult women would be ashamed to wear.

“How adorable!”, I hear the doting parents squeal.

Very often the Mums of these little ones would never even dream of wearing such loud makeup or such bold clothing, because it might get them unwanted attention and also, in some cases, is not modest.

And yet, it is alright to expose our children to such attention and immodesty?

“They’re just little children!” Yes, they are just little children. Little children who are defenceless, vulnerable and who depend on us to make right choices for them. Just what favour are we doing them by exposing them to this wicked world where even the body of a little girl is no longer off limits, in sexually charged clothing and adult makeup?

There are also logical issues to be dealt with. If something is alright for a child to wear when they are young and is inappropriate when they get older, how are you going to reason that out with her?

“So what should our little girls wear?”, you may well ask. In the Bible, Paul asks women in general to dress modestly. Now this does not mean drab, dowdy clothing. We need to choose clothing that’s modest as well as becoming. And we need to teach our daughters how to dress this way too.

Apart from this, I believe, clothing and our other fashion choices need to agree with our state of life and the activities we are involved in.

As a little girl, I expect Prarthna to live her childhood with all the joy it was meant to have. Towards this, I wouldn’t want her to wear clothing that’s restrictive or uncomfortable. Clothes that fit well and cover surfaces that are prone to cuts and scrapes during inevitable falls are best, I have found.

I would like to shield Prarthna from eyes that might view children with wickedness in their hearts. So I try to dress her modestly. I’ve often seen little girls dressed in skirts so short that they spend most of their time in public looking self-conscious and tugging at the hem of their skirts. I think clothing should ideally allow you to be unaware of it. Letting S decide if an outfit is appropriate or not for Prarthna has been helpful. Sometimes Dads see problems our eyes don’t notice.

Most of all, I want Prarthna to be unselfconscious about her looks. I don’t want her to learn how to take advantage of her outward beauty or give it undue importance. I want her to know the truth of the statement of the wise man who said that charm is deceitful and that beauty is fleeting.

Her Heart

Sigh! Here we go… the hardest of all to train.

I remember when Prarthna was born, how people would visit and say things like- “Oh you know, babies can see angels because they are innocent of sin.” As a new Mum, I couldn’t refute this with any confidence. Soon, though, I discovered that my little angel was far from angelic. Even as a newborn, she would arch her back stubbornly and scream when I would lay her in her crib for her nap. I knew for sure, then, that we are all born in sin. Even before we begin to do wrong, we are bound by the desire to rebel and do things that we know are not right.

After thirty two years of life, I’m still struggling with the bad in me (a.k.a. the flesh).

Knowing this, how do I help my daughter with her struggle? Do I let it go because she can never completely toe the line by herself? Do I lash out at her immediately and instil in her a fear of doing wrong?

Either of these could end with disastrous consequences. If I let wrongdoing slide now, when she is a child, sin will only grow upon sin and I would be unleashing a truly hopeless individual into the world when she grows up. On the other hand, if I react too harshly to her wrongs, I could end up hardening her tender heart, ruining her sense of self-worth and damaging a healthy conscience.

I want to instead tend her heart and teach her the skills she will need to live a life pleasing to her God. I want to teach her self-control. I want to teach her to be patient. I want her to have a spirit that perseveres and doesn’t give up too easy. I want her to have a heart that is generous, kind and thoughtful. I want her to be faithful in all her roles and stand firm for the truth and for what is right. I want her to truly love all that is good and right and holy. I want to build in her a tender conscience that will help her discern clearly right from wrong.

I want her to see all these qualities first exhibited and modelled by me. God grant me the grace for this! I am only too aware of my many shortcomings in these areas. By modelling these, I want to point her to the only one who is truly good- the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.

Which brings me to my greatest desire for Prarthna. My greatest desire is this- that in His time, her mind, body and heart will be ready to hear the call of her Creator and that she will answer it with joy.

Finding my First Love

Do you remember the first couple of months after your wedding? When everything was starry-eyed and new? Every moment is fresh and each new thing you learn about your spouse is amazing and precious and oh so lovable. You can feel your lives entwining and it’s lovely. You look into each other’s eyes bashfully, then confidently. Asking questions, wanting to know everything. Every thought. Every dream. Ah those glory days. I remember how it was when S and I first got married. So much laughter. It seems now as if we laughed our way through those first months. Which will not be surprising to anyone who has heard S laugh (for those of you who haven’t, infectious would be an understatement for his laugh. When he tells a joke, people laugh more because of his laugh than because they think the joke’s funny!).

We reveled in each other. And then as the years (or months) go by, things change. You no longer notice the wave in his hair that you once found so fascinating. Or the way his eyes twinkle when he’s happy. You used to walk hand in hand, alive with the knowledge that you were holding a hand that is precious. Now you stand side by side too aware of others being around. What happened?

Now let’s be clear. I’m not here sitting on my high horse, looking down on all you lowly creatures who have not been treating your spouses with the value they deserve. I write as one who has fallen into this pit so many times. And I often wonder why I lose the intensity of my first love over and over again. In trying to understand myself better, here are some of the things I figure contribute to dullness in what should be a spectacularly brilliant marriage:

When the New becomes well… not so New

There comes a time in every marriage when you don’t have many more stories of the past to tell. When he starts to say-“I remember when…” and you say “Yeah, yeah, you’ve told me about that already.” You already know most of what has made him, him. And you know how as a singleton, you dream of that person whose sentences you can finish? How romantic, huh? Well turns out, it’s not all that romantic after a point. “I can read you like a book”, he says. The mystery is gone. The shine has worn off.

We are a restless species. Always wanting the new, the fresh, seeking to know the unknown. Yearning for a challenge. Well, our spouse is not meant to provide fresh new mysteries to satisfy and keep us entertained. It’s time to move from the restless nascent phase of “ooh, I don’t know you yet and you’re amazing”, and settle down to the comfort of becoming of one flesh that marriage seeks to achieve.

I’ve found that as the newness fades, as I know S more and more, and we continue to think out loud to each other, something is happening within us. “My” dreams, goals and hopes are fading away, replaced very unobtrusively by “ours”. We are slowly and surely being moved from facing different directions to facing the very same one, resolutely and unitedly.

And I find that I don’t need the sizzling mystery anymore. I’m enjoying this brand new mystery of two people becoming one way too much.

When you know he ain’t going nowhere

This one is pretty bad. I always feel extra guilty about this. I know S is never going to leave. I have complete faith in his commitment to me. It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do. He’s not going anywhere. So what if I don’t make him his evening tea with the extra care that I would if I were making some for guests? So what if I have only a frown or an indifferent look for him when he comes in, while others are welcomed in with warm smiles and loud happy exclamations? So what if I shuffle around the house with uncombed hair and a frumpy old nightgown when it’s just him and me, but I rush to wash and change if there’s a knock on the door.

Why don’t we do our best, look our best and behave our best with the one who loves us the most and reserve it instead for others? Why oh why do we take unshakeable love for granted, when we should cherish it and be grateful. When I think about this particular weakness of mine, I must say I am sort of repulsed by myself. It’s so colossally unfair. And I can’t just blame it on natural human weakness and leave it at that. No! My husband deserves better. He deserves the best! The only solution to this, I believe, is to just get up, shake yourself off from your haze of stupidity, and bad behavior and choose to start afresh with resolve. Yes, I will make the extra effort to put a smile on his face! Yes, I will choose to look the most presentable to my husband! Yes, I will put aside my comfort for the sake of his comfort!

When you’re married to the job

Now, I must confess that I never worked more than a day after I got married. Don’t get me wrong, I used to love my job. And when I say love, I mean I love love loved it. So what happened, you ask? Well, I don’t quite know for sure, but the moment I got engaged to S, my awesome job seemed to get a whole lot less awesome. I soon gave in my papers and quit saying I wanted to prepare myself for marriage (Ha! As if anything really prepares you for the ‘M’ word!). I wanted to learn how to keep house and cook and all of that. Anyway, after we got married, S was quite convinced that there wasn’t enough work at home to keep me usefully occupied all day (which I never agreed with considering that being the most clueless new housewife that ever was, I took hours to get a single meal ready, needed to rest after each cooking session and got so tired out that nothing else really got done. Apart from that, the meals I did make were nothing to write home about. It would not be an exaggeration to say that we wouldn’t have survived if not for a jar of store-bought green chilly pickle that kept us going!).

So I applied and soon landed a job. S was so proud of me. On my first day, he dropped me at work and promised to pick me up in the evening. I walked in…and I hated it. Everyone spoke a language I didn’t understand and the employees seemed to spend all their time flirting with each other and giggling ridiculously. I felt so out of my comfort zone. And I decided I was never coming back. EVER. That was my first and thankfully last day juggling work and home.

But I have seen homes where career seems to come between couples. Husband and wife work long hours. I’m talking 10 hour days and 6 day weeks. They come home too tired for anything but sleeeeeep. They see each other only on Sundays when they sleep late, rush to church come back and spend the rest of the evening probably watching TV. There’s no quality time spent together, no time sharing or communicating, and certainly no romance. It’s worse still if husband and wife are on different shifts.

We have become what’s called a “driven” people. But we were not made to be automatons. God said-“It is not good for man to be alone.” Into what are we investing our time, our energy and our lives? If we’re investing too much in our careers that our marriages suffer, then sooner or later, we are going to find ourselves exactly as pre-Eve Adam found himself- Alone. And you can feel terribly alone in an unhealthy marital relationship. Our work can satisfy us temporarily by giving us self-worth and a sense of value, but it can never fill the space that only your life partner can.

When you let your babies steal the show

They’re cute, they’re cuddly, they need you and only you. They don’t argue with you, question you, judge you or find fault with anything you do. They act like you’re the only person that matters in the whole entire universe. Need I say more?

So many of us unfortunately fall prey to letting our little ones be the source of comfort and support that our spouses were meant to be. Letting our kids be all in all, while our husbands are unceremoniously dumped on the back burner. I recently saw an ad online that featured the hashtag #myBabymyValentine. Apparently, according to the ad, the bond between a Mom and her baby lasts a lifetime. Well, the last I checked, “till death do us part” only applied to the husband-wife relationship. When did we let our babies usurp our husbands? We may think we’re doing something lovely for our children, being totally there for them. But, we are robbing them of the great joy and sense of security every child feels when he knows his parents love each other deeply and their marriage is strong.

Let’s do our kids a real favour by loving our spouses first and modelling a strong and happy marriage for them.

The Old Married Couple syndrome

I personally hate this one and hope I never get here. It’s the oh-we’ve-been-married-so-long-we-don’t-need-all-that-anymore situation. Sounds familiar? Obviously, the best things are what go out the window. Holding hands. Date nights. Flowers and surprises. General mushiness. Even (horror of horrors!) sharing the same bed.

And why? Who made the awful rule that all the fun needs to ooze out of our lives and marriages as we get older? Why can’t it just get “funner”? I rebel! And I hope you do too! We’re never too old to need romance!

When we let the Battle become a War

When two sinners get married, there’s bound to be some sparks flying around (not in a good way). And if we don’t soon learn the drill of discuss-resolve-forgive-restore, things can soon get out of hand. I’ve seen homes where husbands and wives behave as if they’re mortal enemies under one roof. Simply because little battles have piled higher and higher.

I hate it when S and I haven’t resolved something. There’s no peace, no joy, and no love. I can’t have a marriage without love. And sometimes, the only thing that stands in the way of conflict resolution is one or two big fat egos. I think cherishing love in our marriages is way more important than nestling our overgrown ego. So I don’t mind going groveling back to my husband. I need have no pride when it comes to him. I remember a season of stress when it seemed as if our home was a constant battleground. We seemed to just move from fight to fight. It was terrible. Agonizing. In the end, we just had to break down and fall into each other’s arms, weeping, and repent for our hard heartedness. Restoration can be as easy and as beautiful as that …sometimes. But trying to restore your marriage is the only battle really worth fighting for.

Clichéd but true, Marriage is a beautiful journey. And I for one, want it to stay that way. I want S and I to just grow in love day after day. I want our hearts to always beat faster for each other. And call me a hopeless romantic but I want us to still be giggly and silly when we’re eighty and in dentures!

Opposites attract?

The trite cliché that we hear and learn so early on. Positively charged ions attract negatively charged ions. Oppositely charged poles of magnets are irresistibly drawn to each other. Even on the colour wheel, the colours that look best together are placed opposite each other and called complementary colours. So clearly seen in the way the world works, how can this principle not hold good when we delve into the mysterious realm of romantic relationships? So the blonde, fair and beautiful Disney princess invariably finds her match in the tall, dark and handsome prince and then they ride off into the glittering sunset to begin their happily ever after. And so we spend most of our youth dreaming of that special somebody who can “complement” us.

“Oh the follies of silly, silly youth!”, we who have invariably married our opposites think, “if only we’d known then what we know now! Sigh!” Let me present to you the case of my husband and I. S is organized. He works best when things are in its place. I’m disorganized. I can work oblivious to mess and chaos all around me. He believes there is one right way to do everything and I feel there are many equally legitimate ways to do any given thing. He loves to be around people. It energizes him. I can be around people for a period of time but it drains me and I’ll need to schedule what I call “alone time” to get re-energized. Time is very important to him whereas, I am quite capable of going through my day without ever looking at the clock. He works best in the mornings and he needs to wake up early everyday. “Sleeping in” is a concept that appals him. I am at my best at night when everything is quiet and my day’s duties are done. Waking up post-eleven during holidays was a routine part of my pre-wedding days. He wakes up every morning with a plan. I wake up and then plan as I go. He reads to fall asleep while I can’t ever get to sleep if I have a book in front of me. He reads mainly spiritual books, I mostly read fiction. He loves places of historical interest; I think they’re yawn-worthy. I could go on and on.

Recently, we took the Myer-Briggs personality test and surprise-surprise, we found that we were opposite on every given index. He’s an ESTJ (Extrovert, Sensor, Thinker, Judger) while I’m an INFP (Introvert, Intuitive, Feeler, Perceiver). It doesn’t get more complementary than that!

One of our first fights was about how to cut an onion. Yes, you read that right. There I was, newly married and trying not to mess up the upma I was making for breakfast when S walks in to make sure everything’s ok. Unsuspectingly, I picked up an unpeeled onion, placed it on its side and sliced it through the middle. Then I proceeded to peel the half that I intended to use for the afore-said upma when I was rudely interrupted by a horrified shriek. “What are you doing, Blodie?!!! That’s not how you cut an onion!” I was informed that nobody in the entire universe cuts an onion that way and that it was “unscientific”. Ask anyone, he said. The right way was to peel the entire onion first, then wash it and then cut it. In my mind it didn’t matter as long as clean, chopped onions went into the food whereas for him it did matter. It mattered a whole lot.  Trivial to me; earth-shattering to him.

How do we ever get this thing called marriage to work, you may wonder. Well, one of the first things we learnt was that since there’s no one in the world exactly like you, it’s fairly obvious that you and your spouse will have differences. It’s about the commitment we made to each other and choosing to love and understand. By determining not to let walls build up and lead separate lives, we constantly come head-to-head with issues caused by our differences. It’s painful and difficult during the process of working things out, compromising, and trying to change things that bother the other person. But it pays off to work on your marriage, I’ve found. You pay a high price (relinquishing freedom, privacy, ego) but you reap even richer dividends. S and I are the best of friends, we discuss everything together. We work as a team and have tons of fun just being around each other. And most importantly, I find the love just continues to grow as the years go by, becoming a love that is richer, purer and so satisfying.

So you opposites out there, take on those conflict issues with boldness and love. Tear down those walls ruthlessly and yield to the beautiful journey that Jesus envisioned in when He created marriage.

Breaking free from the Mother complex

My country is one that is famed for the idea of the Mother goddess. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, there was a raging debate over whether to chant “Bharat Mata ki jai” or not. A debate into which I choose not to enter. What I do want to talk about is this elevation of mothers in general from the realm of flesh and blood to an almost inhuman, super-human Mother. You know what I’m talking about. Cue the violins. The mother- unselfish, always sacrificial and always loving. She naturally knows (almost magically) how to make her child feel better. She is perfect in every way, binding her children to her with unbreakable ties. There are poems written for her. Stories that laud her. She is above all else. No one will ever compare to her.

When I found out that I was pregnant with my first child, post the overwhelming “wow- there’s- living- person- inside- of-me” moment, I remember wondering if I were cut out to meet the “Mother” criteria. The fact that I was, and still am, petrified of babies didn’t help. I mean, babies cry when they see me. They sense my fear. I had no idea whatsoever what it took to keep a baby alive, much less rear him or her. I mean, I didn’t even know how to take care of my husband or my home (in my defence, I’d just been married for like a month). There were moments of real fear and self-doubt. Worse still, after giving birth for the first time, I had no tender magic bond with my baby. All those movies and books that made giving birth seem like an instant mother formula was such a lie. It took me at least two months to really bond with my babies in a meaningful way. Getting to know why the baby was crying. Deciphering the meaning of the facial expressions. Getting to know the person that my child is.  It took time. And all learning takes time.

If I hadn’t had people that were brought into my life to support me and tell me the truth about motherhood and essentially teach me how to be a mother, I may have put myself down as a third-rate Mum for not knowing how to be one naturally.

But now I know. I know there is no instant transformation. I know it’s a process. I know I don’t need to be perfect. I may make several mistakes but I’ll learn. And that’s totally fine. I know that it’s no white flag moment to ask other Mums for help or advice. I know that I don’t need to fit any mould. Yes, I am a mother. And I bring myself into the role and make it uniquely mine. I am a mother like no other. I bring my weaknesses and strengths into this great responsibility. I am a work in progress. I am nothing divine. But the Divine is working in me promising to bring what He began to completion. I am not super-human but I have access to super-human grace, if I will only reach out and take it.

I don’t want my children to ever think me some sort of martyr. Yes, I want to model right Christian behaviour. I want to model patience, love and kindness. Self-control (that’s a big one). But I don’t want them to think of this as something that is weirdly only a “mother” attribute. I want them to see these as something that they can and must also practise for themselves.

I don’t need my children to see me as perfect. Let them see the chinks in my armour. Let them see who I am honestly. But let them also see me striving to do the right thing. Let them also see me apologize quickly for being unjust. Let them see me face up to my wrongs. Let them see me fail. Let them see me succeed with the help of power not my own.

Most of all, I don’t want to bind my children to me with a feeling of guilty obligation. They are not my property. They are simply my responsibility to love, cherish, nurture and train up into young men and women who will fulfil the purpose for which they were created. And I must free them in order to do that.

I began learning to be a mother when I gave birth. Three children later, I’m still learning. And what with all the different phases that I need to go through with my munchkins, I’m not sure I’ll ever stop learning. I’m not the perfect mother and come to think of it, I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect mother. She’s a myth. A myth that unfortunately hangs over the heads of countless women causing them to either feel not good enough or try to display “goddess” like behaviour that elevates them to a level no human being can ever honestly occupy.

So let’s just cut the myth out of our lives and break free of this great lie of the Divine Mother. She is not who I am trying to be. She is not who you need to be. She is not the goal. The goal is much higher. The goal is beyond the mere role of Motherhood. The goal is about being daily conformed into the image of Christ in every aspect of my life. To daily shed my mistakes and allow Him, the great refiner to purify me not so that I get the glory, oh no. The divinity is not mine. It’s all His. And the glory for anything that I end up becoming will always and ever be only His.

A Lesson from my Mother

My brothers and I were not an easy bunch to deal with. The three of us were very close in age. My brother and I are just 11 months apart (that’s right! Not even a full year!). And brother #2 arrived after a long gap of two years! We never got lonely but my how we played and fought! We would fling toys from our second floor balcony to see how long it took to hit the ground. We suffocated each other with pillows until the victim gave up and sang-“I surrender all”! We played unbelievably elaborate games which almost always ended up in a howling fight.

In short, we were little terrors. How my Mum did it I don’t know. Once we become parents, we often look back at our own parents and see all that they did wrong. All the things we don’t want to repeat as we bring up our own little ones. But I’ll tell you this for my Mom. I have never once heard her complain about her children to anyone.

My Mother brought us kids up single-handedly for the most part and though I’m sure it overwhelmed her at times to have three kids hurricaning through the house she never once put us down before others.

Now, this is not hypocrisy. It’s not “my kids are terrible but people don’t need to know it”. It’s more an attitude of “these are my children, given to me as gifts, and I choose to cherish them.”

And when you think about it, how true it is! Yes, they are gifts. And yet, when we ponder it from our selfish perspectives, a very different picture emerges. They take away from our quiet. They take away from our peace. They take away from our freedom. They take away from the tidiness of our homes. They take away our energy. They take away from our ability to not be on high-alert all the time. Need I go on? It’s been months since I had my quiet time without my little shadow sitting down next to me saying she wants to sing with me too. When I sit to read, there are two voices pleading with me to read it aloud. When I sit down to eat, that’s when they need to go to the bathroom. When I’m stirring something that needs to be stirred continuously or else, that’s when they have a flaming row and come bawling into the kitchen for justice. When I lie down in the night to sleep, just as my aching back hits the oh-so-comforting flatness of the bed, is when I hear the whining for water.

But… even with all this, they are my children. Little sensitive souls that trust me. And I choose not to complain about these precious gifts.

Where’s the scope for sharing then? Don’t we need counsel? Don’t we need to unburden ourselves sometimes? Yes! Yes! Of course, we need counsel and a sympathetic, listening ear does wonders.