In 1991, as a young girl, I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. It was not an easy decision, for I was born and raised in a devout Sikh family. Sikhism is among the youngest of the world religions, founded in AD 1469 in the northern state of Punjab, India.
I was born in a military hospital in Meerut in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the youngest of four children. My father’s service with the Indian army required us to move every few years.
Being a very smart child in kindergarten, I was promoted one grade ahead to learn alongside my sister Anu, who is 16 months older than me. Until age 17, I studied at Catholic schools in every city where my father was posted. However, I never knew Jesus as anything more than one of many gods presented in the diverse faiths of my country.
As a family, we attended the Sikh temple every Sunday and partook in the langar—the communal meal shared by all who visit the temple. There were phases in my life when we went to the Sikh and Hindu temples every evening, leaving a deep and lasting impact on my young mind.
A test and a promise
A year before I found Christ, my father was posted in Roorkee, which is now in the state of Uttarakhand, where I struggled to cope with a new school, a new uniform, and new friends. In my struggle, I turned to all the various gods I had worshiped throughout my childhood. I often ended up in the bathroom, where in solitude I prayed with tears to Guru Nanak, Allah, Rama, Jesus, and Sai Baba, begging them for help. After much hard work that year, I barely passed my final exams. Ashamed of my performance, I contemplated committing suicide.
While I was still planning how to end my life, my father decided that my older sister Anu and I should continue our studies in the western city of Ahmednagar, where we had been stationed before and where my brother was already pursuing his undergraduate studies. This, he thought, would ease the academic transition and hopefully improve our results.
So Anu and I got admitted as 12th grade students and moved to a girl’s hostel (our brother was living in the boy’s hostel). There, a senior named Anita shared the gospel with us. My sister accepted Christ, having been miraculously healed of a long-standing ailment. But I opposed Anita and the message she tried to convey, speaking ill of her to those I knew.
After three months in this city and college, my mother decided to join us. She rented a house, and we moved out of the hostel to live with her. I was glad to get away from Anita and her message.
However, a few months later, as I prepared for my approaching exams, the fear and failure of the previous year gripped my heart. I sought out Anita and asked if her Jesus would help me in my exams. She said he would, but I had to promise not to cheat, which was difficult for me since I did cheat. Nevertheless, I made the promise.
Ready to test this God of Anita’s, I embarked on a journey of discovery. I borrowed the Bible that Anita had given Anu, and every day I walked about 500 meters from our rented house, sitting under the shade of a big stone. For the next 40 days, I studied my course books and the Bible there from morning until sunset.
Initially, whenever I opened the Bible to a random page, I could make no sense of what I read. But then, one day, as I pondered the position of Jesus among all the gods I had known, I opened the Bible in my usual manner. Soon thereafter, I noticed one verse on that page was slightly magnified, while the rest of the page was dim. My eyes were drawn to that magnified verse, John 14:6: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
I was stunned—not only at the visual presentation of the verse but also at its profound challenge to my polytheistic belief system. I closed my eyes and opened them again to check whether the words still appeared larger. And they did.
From that day on, the Bible came alive to me. I began to talk to God several times each day, and every time I opened the Bible randomly, I found a verse specially magnified for me. That was God’s way of communicating with me.
Eventually, I appeared for my exams, and as promised, I did not cheat. When the results were out, I stood third in the college. But instead of exulting in triumph, I felt ashamed of having exploited an almighty, all-powerful God for my own advancement. I confessed to the Lord, “Though I started to follow you out of selfish ambition, today I tell you that henceforth, whether I pass or I fail, I will follow you.”
One day, the Lord said to me, “I have written your name in the Book of Life. Do you know what name it is?” I had always been embarrassed of being called Surinder, a unisex Sikh name. But God wanted it recorded among the names of his people. This helped reconcile me not only to my own identity but also to the God who loved me just as I was.
But I still needed to learn new habits of self-denial. God told me, “Forgive all those who have hurt you.” It was difficult, for some hurts ran deep, but remembering what Jesus had done for me, I obeyed. The next step was even more challenging: “Now go and ask forgiveness from all those whom you have hurt and return all the things that you have in your possession that do not belong to you.”
I was flabbergasted. How could I humiliate myself by asking for forgiveness? But if I wanted to follow Jesus, God told me in no uncertain terms, then I had to take up my cross. “Obedience is necessary,” I recall hearing in a quiet, still voice. “Don’t worry about the outcome.”
Quiet hours
To my amazement, the outcome was not what I expected. In fact, my confession resulted in deep peace, joy, and a greater awareness of the Lord’s presence in my life.
Excited about my newfound faith, I shared the gospel with my mother. But she snubbed me, saying I had not reached an age for talking about God or religion. Instead, she said, I should have fun, eat well, and be happy.
Soon, we moved to a new city to join my father after he got transferred again, and the whole family was reunited. We said a tearful goodbye to Anita, whom I never saw again. Since Anu and I had only one Bible between us, we tore it into two parts and occasionally swapped the portions. The short time we had spent with Anita prepared us to face the tense situation with our family members, who wanted to stamp out our new faith. When I was down, I sang the few hymns and choruses I had heard Anita sing.
We had no church to attend or fellowship with other believers, so we were entirely dependent on our Bible and illumination from the Holy Spirit. Lacking privacy at home and being forbidden to pray openly, we resorted to spending hours alone with the Bible, locked in the bathroom. It was during those quiet hours that the Lord led me through verse-by-verse, teaching me how to read the Bible, meditate on it, and learn from it.
That instruction included a call to repentance. I remember protesting, “I have not committed any sin. I am just a girl of 17.” But the Holy Spirit replayed episodes across my life, dating back to when I was only 3 years old. It turned out I had much to repent of! As a result, my bathroom spiritual-growth sessions got longer, sometimes stretching to more than half the day.
My family did not give up trying to reconvert us. Relatives physically assaulted us, took us to a psychiatrist to test our sanity, and called in Sikh evangelists to try convincing us of our supposed folly; even Roman Catholic priests were summoned to make us change our minds. All these interventions had one purpose: to prove the superiority of my family’s Sikh faith.
There were periods when I doubted the choice to follow this “God of the Christians.” But the Lord would reassure me with words from Scripture, which kept my feet grounded and helped me persevere. Whenever doubt arose, certain verses kept ringing in my ear, like Luke 9:62 (“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”) or Matthew 10:37 (“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”).
And God’s promises for my future were my only anchor. I remember finding assurance in Matthew 19:29, which says, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.”
As a last resort, my family separated me from Anu and sent me to my father’s native state of Punjab to stay with relatives, thinking the environment would somehow break my faith and cause me to see reason. But even then, the Lord vindicated his name through many signs and wonders.
While I was exiled in Punjab, my parents took Anu to a witch doctor, hoping to cast the Holy Spirit out of her. The witch doctor set her inside a circle made of lemon and chili, threw ashes on her head, and chanted mantras over her for almost an hour. But to no avail. He turned to my parents and said, “He who is inside her is way more powerful than the [spirit] who is inside me.” They were astonished and speechless.
Meanwhile, in Punjab, the entire village knew that when I prayed to this God of mine, miracles would occur. To give one example: In July 1993, Punjab witnessed massive rainfall. It lasted for days on end, killing hundreds and affecting half the state’s population. My aunts came and asked if I could pray to make the rain stop. I said I would, but only when the Lord led me to.
Soon, there was no food in the house and no place to sit or sleep, as the entire roof was leaking and portions of the house had collapsed. One day, after we had to send my cousins away hungry, I ran to a room drenched in rainwater and tearfully began to pray. When I finished, I stepped outside to see that the rain had ceased. My aunts changed their view of me from that day forward. Every now and then, they would ask me about Jesus or invite me to sing a Christian chorus.
Amazement and gratitude
Seven years after my conversion, I was finally introduced to a church. By then, my father had passed away in an accident. My mother allowed Anu and me to attend worship services every Sunday, hoping it would result in us finding husbands.
Despite intense family pressure to marry, I waited upon the Lord. I told him that, as my heavenly Father, it was his responsibility to get me married, and I would not seek someone on my own. In his time and way, he brought a Christian husband into my life through my unbelieving oldest sister. Outwardly, this happened through the kind of arranged marriage that was common in our culture, but I believe God was the one doing the arranging.
Eventually, the Lord called me into full-time ministry. Over the ensuing 22 years, this call took me to many cities across five continents, where I have spoken about my experience and taught others what God has taught me from his Word. I have had the privilege of addressing women’s ministry leaders and pastors’ wives in both urban and rural settings, tackling key issues they face in their daily lives.
Having suffered persecution firsthand, I closely identify with persecuted Christians and thus advocate for their cause. Besides liaising with the police on behalf of victims, I present their stories to the world to mobilize awareness and prayer.
When I see the Lord using me to teach, preach, and counsel married women, couples, and children, I am filled with amazement and gratitude for all the ways he has blessed me. My prayer is that he will enable me to walk in his most perfect ways until I finally see him face to face: my Redeemer, my Savior, and my Father.
Surinder Kaur is the South Asia editor for Christianity Today.
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