At the age of 18, in the year 2005 I moved to a place called Pune for my higher education. I was very excited to be away as I had always dream of freedom and independence. Since childhood I felt as if I’m given least importance and last priority, so this phase of mine was supposed to be one of the best phase, however life had something else for me.
On 7th December 2005, I met a 21 year old handsome and smart man. In no time we fell in love with each other and within 20 days of our so called friendship affair, we eloped from our home and got married on 23rd January 2006. Inter caste love marriage is considered to be a sin in our country, which led to various bad consequences in our life. Both families tried their best to separate us through emotional blackmail, torture, abuses, threats etc, however we were firm not to leave each other till our last breath. After tolerating lot of tortures, there came a time when I decided to kill myself for which I went in front of a bus. Lucky for me, the bus stopped for some reason and I thought to wait and attempt suicide again after sometime.
When I was taking a step back, a fast moving car overtook the bus from the left side hit me. Then I don’t know what happened, but when I opened my eyes, I found myself on a stretcher coming out of an operation theatre in a half conscious state asking for my husband. My condition was bad. My jaws were fractured and Doctors inserted 2plates inside it and did two surgeries, my teeth alignment was gone, few bones of my chest and shoulder were fractured, pieces of glasses were all over my body, my face was swollen like a balloon; The worst part was that My hubby was not with me. I was completely shattered and broken.
I was a very faithful idol worshiper and I was thinking why my god did this to me. Since age 5, I did fasting, worshiping and so many things to please my god and even after being so faithful this is what I got! Why? Where did I go wrong? What did I not do? Why me? Why god didn’t want me to be with my love? Wow I still remember how bad I was feeling. I was considering myself as the biggest failure. Since childhood I convinced myself that the god whom I am worshiping will give me someone who will love me more than everyone, but I had so many questions in my mind and I wanted the answers.
I was in one of the best reputed hospital and I was supposed to get discharged in 7-8 days time so I thought of praying hard to find my answers within those days. So this is how my journey began. For the first 3 days I prayed to each and every Hindu god to give me my love back however I didn’t find any answer instead the situation got worst and my parents decided to send me abroad. On the fourth day I decided to worship the Muslim god, on the fifth day I prayed to the Sikh god however no answer. My hubby didn’t even come to see me in the hospital and I got more and more furious. I got annoyed thinking about my family and my hubby. I started feeling as if my hubby left me and now he is not bothered about me. Still I was firm and I decided to continue my prayers.On the 6th day I started challenging the Christian God, Jesus Christ.
I told him: “Jesus, I am in pain and I tried all the gods; and now I want to try You. If You are the true God then please give me my husband back. If you give me my husband, then I will dedicate myself and my family’s life to you.” Actually these were the sentences I was using in front of all gods.
On the 6th night I reminded Jesus about the challenge and I went to sleep. The same night at around 2am, I woke up and was unable to sleep no matter how much I closed my eyes. Beside my bed was a relative, but she was in a deep sleep, on a chair beside my bed. I then decided to contact my hubby. In pain and crutches I crept out of the private ward I was in. Outside my ward was 2 guards, they were suppose to ensure no visitors, but I suspected that they were there to ensure I did not get away too. They like my relative were in deep sleep, on the floor. After walking in pain around the hospital I saw someone in the hall way and approached him. I asked to use his phone as I did not have money with me to use the pay phone. At first he refused, but after pleading with him, he finally allowed me to use the hand phone. I called my husband and told him where I was. I told him today if he did not come to take me away I will be gone forever. Now in those 6 days, I got this courage, wisdom and strength only after challenging Jesus. Finally I was with my hubby before the 7th day morning. Till date I try to remember how I got the courage and strength to reach to my hubby in the middle of the night. In 10 minutes after I had called my husband, I left the hospital with him. As promised to Jesus, I accepted Him as my Savior and to my surprise I found later that when I was in hospital my husband was praying to Jesus for me. He found Jesus through one of his best friend. We both went to church after running away from hospital and got saved and became new creation.
With Gods grace we completed 11 years of our marriage and we have a wonderful 10 year old son. We have given our complete charge to Jesus. Our parents and in laws have accepted us and our Jesus. In these 11 years there were lots and lots of ups and downs, however Jesus never left us alone and always blessed us with the best things in our life. In short, we were on the road and we didn’t have a penny for our food and now we are in Singapore, one of the best country with a super abundant life.
I am proud to say that my Jesus is the strongest and we can’t survive without Him.
From Sushil Patil, Ankita Patil and their beloved son
