The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).
I was one of those men. But God showed me the right path through the Lord Jesus—not for anything I did, but because he loves me. Me, a former atheist.
How did I become an atheist? It must have been part of God’s plan to get me away from the religion of my birth. I was born in India, where my father was the priest of a Hindu temple. But when I lived with my parents in my native village, I never celebrated any festivals or worshiped any god. I always questioned my parents’ beliefs. I never co-operated with them. My father was very upset about my behavior. There was no peace in my family. We also had financial problems. At the age of 19 I left for Bombay, a city in western India on the Arabian Sea. There I struggled, since all my relatives had abandoned me. I felt there could be no God.
Then I met a girl who was born and raised in a strong Catholic family from Kerala, a province on the southwest tip of India. I loved her and offered to marry her. She refused for many reasons, the main one being my atheism. I tried in many ways to win her. Nothing worked. Finally, I pretended to be a believer. I went to Kerala and met her father. I approached the Church authorities for my baptism and marriage. I married her in the Church with the support of her parents.
But I did not believe even in Jesus, even after my baptism and our marriage. As we settled into married life in Bombay, I fell back into my old behavior. I tested my wife’s faith in many ways. I allowed no prayer in my home. But she prayed for me anyway. She never compromised with Jesus, as some girls do for their marriage.
A year after our wedding, in 1991, I was operated on at Bombay Hospital to have the mitral valve of my heart repaired. For the next six years I had no health problems at all. Then one day in August 1997, on my way to the office, a sudden pain started in my chest. My heartbeat increased, and the rhythm changed. I was frightened. I got off at the next railway station and went to the nearest hospital. The doctors there could find nothing wrong.
I returned home, but my nights became sleepless. I found I could not stay alone. I wanted someone to be always with me. The doctors could not understand the problem. For days I tried everything to sleep, but nothing worked. No medicine could help me. I had five sleepless nights as things went from bad to worse. Fear and confusion haunted me.
After a week of this, one night my heart almost stopped beating. Darkness covered my eyes, and I could neither see nor hear anything. I thought death had come. I said to my wife, “Something is going to happen to me. Admit me to a hospital so that my life can be saved.”
On the way to the hospital on the local train, I had trouble breathing. As I watched the train stops flash by—Jogeshwari, Goregoan, Malad, Kandivli—my wife prayed for me. When I felt everything was over and there was no chance of survival, I heard a voice within me saying, “Pray! You pray! Believe in me—I am Jesus. You will be saved!” After I heard this voice, a bright light appeared before me. I prayed from my innermost heart, “Lord! Jesus, please save me!” It was the first prayer of my life. All this happened in the early morning, around 3:30. I did not disclose this experience to anyone who was with me.
When I reached Suvarna Hospital in the north part of the city at 4:00 a.m., they admitted me to the intensive care ward. The doctors ran all kinds of tests. The medical data proved that my current problem wasn’t connected to my previous operation in 1991. I do not think the doctors believed what I said about the symptoms. They found nothing wrong and the next day discharged me from the hospital.
Since I was all right, I resumed my normal duties. But within a week I developed the same symptoms while returning home on the local train. I got off at the next stop and asked a person who was standing on the station platform for help. With his aid I reached my wife’s office.
That night I heard the same inner voice saying, “Share your experience with the others. Spread my message, and listen to my word.” But how could I convey this to others? I was an atheist. When the subject of religion arose, I had always ridiculed God. Whenever I encountered someone who believed in God, I used all my intellectual power to try to destroy his faith. I had even denied my wife’s strong faith in Jesus. Now, if I were to tell them of my experience, would they believe me? I told my wife to book a ticket to Muringoor to attend a retreat at the Divine Retreat Center.
The Divine Retreat Center, located in Kerala’s Trichur district, is managed by the Vincentian religious congregation and belongs to the Ernakulam diocese. Retreats in six languages, including English, are conducted simultaneously every week in different auditoriums. An average of 10,000 people per week attends these retreats. Two years before, one of my relatives recommended that I attend a retreat there, but I had rejected the idea. In fact, I had told my wife that instead I would conduct a retreat for those in Divine Retreat Center on the subject of atheism.
I arrived at the center in September 1997, but I was unable to listen to the word of the Lord. I had terrible pain in my shoulders and back. And more importantly, how could I tell everyone that I had accepted Jesus Christ? My ego held me back.
The second day of the retreat I asked the Lord to take away my back and shoulder pain so that my faith in him would be strengthened. By the evening the pain was gone. I was stunned. I went to the first-floor chapel and spoke to the Lord: “ Jesus, my Lord, now I believe in you. You are my Savior and God. You have proved it. Now, please tell me, were you really crucified 2,000 years ago or is it a story?” I heard a voice say, “Open the Bible.” I did so and my eyes fell immediately on the line:
“As a sheep led to the slaughter or a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth” (Acts 8:32–33).
That same night, while I was praying in the prayer hall, I had a vision. Jesus came to me, picked me up, and crushed me with a stone until I was disfigured and lifeless. Then I saw him giving me life again. I was a changed man, and I saw Jesus kissing me and blessing me.
Even though I had never practiced my Catholicism, I went to confession the next day. I did not know how to confess. I went in with a long list of sins. I confessed wholeheartedly. After absolution I felt as though the heaviest burden had been lifted from me. I was filled with joy. I felt like a bird that flies in the sky. I cried out for the sins I committed before the presence of my Lord. The Lord said to me, “Do not worry. I took away your sins on the cross. Now you belong to me. You need my grace only.”
I left the Divine Retreat Center a changed man. I proclaimed to anyone who would listen that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. He is living God and he is the Son of God. Everyone who knew me was stunned. Some of my friends and relatives told me they thought that I had been brainwashed. But after a while they realized that I had become a happy and cheerful person. Even they had to admit that my nature had changed. But they were not ready to accept that the Lord has been responsible for these changes.
Here is the difficult stage in my life. Faith comes with all kinds of tests. I visited all my relatives and asked forgiveness, and I forgave them. I even went to people who had treated me as an enemy. Since Jesus had entered in my life, there would be no more enemies—only friends. I gave a testimony about Jesus; and I prayed for them.
I have started enjoying this life. I study Scripture constantly. I have never experienced this kind of happiness, joy, and peace before. I feel that I am not living on earth but in heaven.
My wife did not believe all this. She thought that I was making up a story. We had a lot of differences regarding my conversion. But I did not lose my temper. I prayed to Jesus and asked him to give her peace. I would even wake up in the middle of the night and pray. My parish priest also prayed for me and guided me in my hard times.
In my personal prayer, the Lord speaks to me and tells me what I am supposed to do. He gives me more strength and power after each and every trial. I understand Satan’s handiwork, so I handle each situation as mentioned in the Bible: “Be alert! Be on the watch! Your enemy the devil roams round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him” (1 Pet 5:8–9).
These days the Lord is using me in many ways. I have surrendered to him fully and am at his service. Jesus keeps telling me that when the time comes he will send me to preach the gospel. He has asked me to wait and read the Bible and live according to his plans. The Lord is healing sick people when I pray; but it his will. Through my prayer the Lord healed Ms. Sawant of seven years of back pain and Mrs. Baby of spinal cord pain. Mrs. Bhavna was healed of high blood pressure. Mr. Abjit, who was suffering from cancer, had the platelets in his blood increase from 20,000 to 130,000 per million. But I know that Christ himself takes our sickness and carries away our diseases.
Still, I am very sorry for the way I lived in the past. I lived in darkness, even though the Light had come into the world. Now I am praying and asking the Lord for those who continue to live in the darkness. I strongly believe that Lord will bring them into his light, as he did me. He is our Shepherd.
The Lord has now touched my older brother. He is also going to church. We pray to Jesus to touch my father so that salvation may come to our whole family. I feel the kind of sorrow that the Lord must have felt in Gethsemane for my father, who still performs pujas—acts of reverence to the Hindu gods through invocations, songs, and rituals—in the temples.
I am praying!