01.10. CHAPTER 10 - LOOKING AHEAD
CHAPTER 10 - LOOKING AHEAD
After I had finished my nursing studies I stayed on and worked in the same area of North India, because I saw the need for Christian nurses there.
I got a job in a primary health centre. We used to go to the villages regularly. Those visits were tiresome, but enjoyable. I was busy - every single day. I loved the people and I loved to tell them about the Lord.
I was able to send some money home each month as a token of my gratitude to my parents. I could give a little money for the Lord’s work in North India. And I also managed to save a little money for a rainy day - or for my wedding!
I did my own cooking, washed my own clothes and thus saved a lot on my personal expenses. Our nurses’ uniform, which I wore most of the time, helped me not to worry about the latest fashions.
Daddy now tried to enter my life again. He had never bothered about me all these years. But now that I had graduated and was earning, he wanted me to go abroad and had started making enquiries with different families for my marriage. He wrote to me that he had stopped drinking - and Mummy confirmed this. That was an answer to my prayers.
I really loved Daddy. So I never wanted to hurt him. But I realised that having put my hand to the plough, if I looked back now, I would not be worthy of my Lord (Luke 9:62). I decided that no relative would ever be more important to me than Jesus Himself.
I started praying about my future. I wanted the Lord’s guidance in the matter of my marriage. I remembered the verses I had read in the Bible like, "How can two walk together unless they are agreed? What fellowship has light with darkness.....Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers..." etc., The meaning of those words from the Bible was very clear: A believer must never marry an unbeliever.
I was determined not to allow my marriage to be filled with quarrels like my mother’s had been. The Lord would help me. I knew that the Bible taught that I should submit to my husband. But I was determined that I would never allow my children to suffer as I had suffered. But how could I get my parents to understand these important truths?
I decided that I would follow the Lord - one step at a time - at all costs.
I decided that I would rather remain single all my life than marry an unbeliever. I just did not want to be linked for my whole life with a person whom God had not chosen for me. And I was prepared to stand against both of my parents on this matter - graciously but firmly! My role models were not worldly women but the godly women I had read about in the Scriptures and in biographies - women like Sarah, Ruth and Priscilla in the Bible, and Susannah Wesley, Betty Stam and Elisabeth Elliot in recent times.
I had once taken some Bible studies for our nurses’ prayer fellowship on women in the Bible and also shared with them the life-stories of these godly women. So the examples of these women were fresh in my mind.
Deborah was such a brave woman that God could use her, like He used Moses, to liberate the Israelites from their enemies. Esther was a girl who had taken a stand for God and become a blessing to the people of God in her generation.
Mary the mother of Jesus was an outstanding example of one who submitted to God, even when she faced the prospect of ridicule and misunderstanding. Martha and Mary had opened their home and their hearts to the Lord and experienced a mighty miracle in their home.
Lydia, Dorcas, Timothy’s mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois, were others whom I had set before my eyes.
I had also taken warning from the bad examples mentioned in the Bible, like Eve, Lot’s wife, Job’s wife, Moses’ wife and Jezebel.
After some years had gone by and no suitable proposals came for me, I accepted the prospect of remaining single all my life. The longing for security was very strong in me, like it is in all young women. But I wanted to be happy in the Lord first of all and to please Him above all things. I wanted to be ready for His coming, without having disobeyed Him in this important step of marriage. I could always work as a nurse and support God’s work in different places. There was a dignity about my life now and a sense of worth.
I had no more daydreams. I wanted to please the Lord alone - come what may. My boss was the medical superintendent of the whole hospital. I kept a dignified attitude with him and we got along fine. As I mentioned earlier, I saw how many nurses moved very freely with doctors - even with those who were married. Those nurses didn’t seem to care that their foolish, flirtatious behaviour could wreck many a family. I never wanted to be guilty of such a sin.
We had a TV in our nurses hostel. But the emptiness of most of the TV programmes made me realise what a tremendous waste of time it was to watch them. A few programmes were informative and I would watch these occasionally. But I always lived in fear that I would get addicted to television and thus lose out spiritually. I realised later, that it was this fear, that had been instilled in me by my good friend the warden, that preserved me from such an addiction.
I found great joy in getting to know people in the church and helping some of them who came to the clinic. I loved those simple people and I felt they loved me too.