01.06. CHAPTER 06 - PROBLEMS OF HOSTEL LIFE

CHAPTER 06 - PROBLEMS OF HOSTEL LIFE

All of us had several duties in the hostel, that we had to do in turns - gardening, helping in the kitchen and in the chapel, washing clothes and keeping the premises clean.

I used to complain about the food I got. But one day it dawned on me, like a revelation from heaven that it was wrong for a Christian to complain about anything. I realised that in fact I deserved nothing but Hell. Everything that I got that was better than Hell was the result of God’s mercy. I realised that I must be prepared to eat anything that is set before me. I saw that even in matters of food, the Lord was testing me. I read in the gospels how Jesus fasted for 40 days and then defeated Satan.

Stealing was a very common practice in our hostel. I thought of my mother who used to pilfer small items from her office. I had then thought that that was not serious, because she was taking things from a government office and not from any individual. Now I knew that all stealing was wrong. I felt a compelling urge to write to Mummy and to tell her that all stealing was displeasing in God’s sight. But I did not know whether Mummy could give up the habit, because I had seen that it was hard for older people to break with their bad habits once these habits had a grip on them. This put a healthy fear in me and I decided to get rid of my bad habits in my youth itself, lest I too end up like them.

Some girls were very selfish and greedy with food and other things that were meant to be shared by everybody. This caused a problem for all of us.Some girls were moody, and constantly occupied with themselves. They were full of self-pity and never finished telling us their sad stories. It was true that many of them had been abused in their homes. But I told them that there was no need for them to live perpetually in their past. They could shake off their past with God’s help, if they wanted to, and Jesus could help them forget their past, forgive those who had wronged them and reach great spiritual heights. I encouraged them to find a cure for their problem by seeking to help others. This would set them free from being occupied with themselves alone all the time.

I would get discouraged if I didn’t get a letter from home when I was expecting one. But sometimes the letters that came from home would discourage me even more, because the news from home was usually bad. The other thing that discouraged me was whenever I lost some small thing. I didn’t know how to get over that. I asked the Lord to help me overcome my attachment to material things.

Some girls on the other hand, were so well off that they couldn’t care less for their things or for the feelings of others.

I took part in whatever games were arranged in the hostel. I found that this was good for me. I saw that some girls who did not like any physical activity and did not even go for a walk became fat and got sick very often. I realised that our body being the temple of the Holy Spirit must be kept fit for His use at all times. I also saw that many eating habits that some of my friends had were actually harmful to our bodies. Overeating made some of the girls really fat and sluggish and ugly.

I noticed a tendency in me to seek the company of the popular girls and to make them my best friends. But as I began to think of what Jesus would have done, I saw that I must befriend the sad and lonely ones, and those who were not smart or capable. I longed to tell them of the Lord, Who calls all the weary and heavy-laden to come to Him to find rest in their souls.

Though I am neither pretty nor fair-skinned, I learned very soon to accept myself as God had made me. I knew that He had made no mistake in the way He had created me in my mother’s womb. I was also certain that He had made no mistake in allowing me to be born into the particular family I was born in to. I was taken up with the thought that Jesus loved me so much as to consider me worth dying for! I could never get over this glorious truth.

I thought of others in the hostel who were more unfortunate than me. There was a girl who had been blinded in one eye by an accident. Another one had a large hairy mole on her face. Others had scars on their faces and were unhealthy in many ways, because of the improper food they had received in their childhood.

Some others were scarred in their minds by the physical and sexual abuse they had suffered from a young age. I really felt sorry for them. How could such a girl tell her ugly secrets to the one who would one day be proposed to her in marriage? I wondered: Would he refuse her when he heard that or would he put her away after marrying her? I didn’t find an answer for that. All I could tell these girls was that Jesus knew their every sorrow and would enable them to triumph over the consequences of all the evil that others had done to them.

I knew that Jesus had come to untie every knot that Satan had tied in our lives (1 John 3:8).There were orphan children in the hostel who had never experienced love from anyone and who could never get close to anyone. I told them about the Friend Whom I had come to know Who would never let us down. I told them that we had to learn to cast even the burden of our past into the Lord’s hands and leave it with Him. He alone was able to wipe away every tear, heal every gaping wound and erase the memory of the past completely.

Another dangerous habit that I saw among some of the girls was their trying to make contact with Satanic powers. I saw some of them trying out palm-reading, getting their horoscopes read, going to fortune-tellers and believing what was written under the column, "What the Stars Foretell" in the newspapers. One or two of them even had ouija boards. I knew that these were wrong and warned them that they would unconsciously get in touch with Satan through all these practices and destroy themselves. I warned them that trying to get their problems solved through black magic and witchcraft would bring upon them greater problems than the ones they tried to solve. Our warden was like a mother to us. She once arranged for a married lady to talk to all of us about sex. This lady taught us, using charts, how boys and girls were different and how our bodies functioned. This information was useful for us, because although we were curious about sexual matters, we were afraid to ask anyone. It was good to learn from a mature person how a male and female cell united to form a wonderful new baby.

Although I was very young, I found that life in the hostel matured me spiritually - and that too, very quickly - because I had the opportunity to help many different types of girls that were in our hostel.

It was only years later that I saw the verse that says that God waters those who water others (Proverbs 11:25).

God certainly watered me in many wonderful ways in those days.