How I Became A Christian

Hi, my name is Falguni and I was born in India and moved to the United States when I was two.  Most of my life I grew up in Southern Illinois. My parents are devout Hindus who sent me and my siblings to church at an early age. How ironic…God was preparing us at an early age. He had his hand on us. You're probably wondering why? Well, the Hindus respect all religions and believe that all Gods are the same, and they believe that there are many different roads you can take to get to God. So they thought they should send us so we can know God.

As I was growing up, my purpose in life was to be the best I can be, to be successful, and to live happily ever after. I believe that this is most people's purpose today. I loved my high school life. I was a straight "A" student who was very popular, smart, involved in Student Council, VP of my class, held offices in many organizations, and was on the Homecoming Court. Most people probably would have classified me as "Miss Goody-Goody and Teacher's Pet". Then came the time to move on to college. I was granted a full scholarship at a community college for the first two years and for my last two years I was given a partial scholarship to an university, so I was very fortunate to go away to college.  Most Indian girls don't get the opportunity to move away from home because most get married at the age of 20 or 21. At that time I was getting the pressure to get married, but I told my parents that I will not get married until I finished college. The pressures just kept coming and coming.  

In the Fall of 1997 I attended Murray State University. I went there only knowing a guy that I had worked with at The Gap. I really didn't like it my first semester there because none of my friends went there. I struggled not knowing anyone the first two weeks. The guy I knew decided to invite me to a Campus Outreach meeting. I refused to go at first, but then I decided, what the heck, I don't have anything to do tonight, why don't I go to meet some new people. So I went and it was very different. The first thing I noticed was that all the people were so friendly and full of so much peace and joy in their hearts. They treated me as if they knew me forever. At that meeting I met a girl named Codie, who happened to be living down my hall. She and I got to be really good friends.

I realized that God had a plan for me all along because he strategically placed Codie in my life and in the dorm next to mine. After a while she started to question me on my beliefs. I told her that I am a Christian. Then she began to ask me a lot of questions, one was: on a scale of one to ten how sure are you that you are going to Heaven? I answered a seven or an eight. She asked me why not a 10? I told her that I am a good girl, but don't always go to church, read my Bible, or pray on a consistent basis. She then told me that it is by grace (unmerited favor that we don't deserve) that I am saved and not by my good works (Ephesians 2:8-9). She also helped me to understand that you have to have a personal relationship with God, which I didn't have because I had NEVER heard of that while I was growing up. Then she explained to me that man is sinful and God is Holy. She showed me the verse "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord—Romans 6:23." It basically told me that for all my sins (falling short of the glory of God—Romans 3:23) I was earning death (eternal death in Hell!!!), but God by his grace gave his Son to die for all the world's sins so I can live eternally with Him. All that blew me away! I continued to ask her how I can have a personal relationship with God and how I can be a 100% sure that I will go to Heaven. She told me that all I had to do was repent (turn 180 degrees from my ways and make God the Lord and Savior of my life) of my sins and to believe (trust) in God (Mark 1:15).

So, I did a little investigating of the scriptures on my own and decided to give my life to Christ on October 3, 1997 because I realized that my life was empty. I remember praying the sinner's prayer when I was younger, but it really didn't mean anything to me until now. (Sinner's prayer: Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for all my sins. I ask you to come into my heart and to be my Lord and Savior of my life. Thank you for forgiving me of all my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of my life and mold me into the person you want me to be. Thank you. In Jesus' name Amen). That has been the best day of my life and if I could change anything about it, I wouldn't! I have become a new creation in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17).

The change wasn't sudden, but it took place a couple weeks later. I started to see things differently, I desired to read God's Word, and most of all I felt peace and joy in my heart, that I had never experienced before. I realized that all my high school accomplishments didn't satisfy my heart like Christ did. My friend continued to help me to grow stronger in my relationship with God through Bible Study and Prayer. I then became involved with the Campus Outreach Ministry for one and a half years; through that I received a lot of training on how to develop an intimate relationship with Christ and how to share my faith effectively. I also had the opportunity to be discipled by Codie and to go on a lot of Retreats and Conferences to help me grow. I am so blessed to receive that! It's amazing how God brought me half-way around the world to Murray State to reveal himself to me! We had been praying for my sister to come to Christ and a couple months later she came to know the Lord in January. She and I are growing stronger each and every day. We are so blessed to have each other!

Being a Christian in a Hindu family has been a real big challenge because we were basically going against the culture. Hey, it's worth it! After sometime, I was asked to be a room leader/Discipler to Disciple girls for ten weeks straight at a Summer Beach Project in Florida. March 21, 1999, I decided to take a stand and go against my parents decision. They didn't want me to go and it later turned into a huge personal ordeal that I'll share with you one day.  Needless to say, I didn't end up going because my grandpa passed away that summer.  My parents and family literally thought we were in a cult and that we were being brainwashed. We had been praying that my parents would see the difference between Hinduism and Christianity and they finally saw that there was a difference. Hinduism is essentially traditions passed down from one generation to the next. By God's protection, they never pushed it on us.

After graduation I couldn't stand being at home and being pressured about marriage and being hindered in my relationship with Christ any longer, so on April 12, 2000 I decided to leave home without telling my parents. I wrote them a letter explaining to them why I had left. Like any parents, they were devastated. On April 14, 2000 they had my sister and I come home for a family intervention with them and my immediate family. It was so horrible! My family was grieving God so much from the hurtful things they were saying. Everyone had said a lot of harsh things to us. My family said that we don't love our parents by the way we have chose to live our life for Christ. They said, "if you were my daughters I would just shoot you and go to jail" and the other family member said, "I would tie you both up and beat you to death." Later that night the gave us an ultimatum, they made us make a decision to either chose God or chose the family. By choosing family we would no longer be able to have contact with our Christian friends, be a Christian, go to church, and read our Bible, basically they wanted us to deny Christ. The next day we left home, because we could never turn our backs on such a Faithful and real God. During this time we were able to get connected to Ravi Zacharias to give us some comfort and sound advice in our decision.  He said one thing that will forever be engraved in my heart:  "when it comes to choosing between God and anything else, always choose God b/c he will honor you for that". Six days had gone by, and my parents call us back and tell us that they want us to come back home and that we can be Christians, go to church, read our Bible, marry a Christian, and move out on our own. Today my family sees how much God is blessing us. They know that we are great daughters who don't want to harm anyone. Some of our family still mocks us for being Christians. In the Indian culture reputation is everything to them, so they can't stop telling us how much we have ruined their lives. It's okay because God is what is important to us, not their reputation. I consider it to be a pure joy to suffer through these trials because it has allowed me to be more like Christ and to have fully experience God's Faithfulness, Love, and Goodness firsthand! To tell you the truth, if I had to go through this again, I would always choose God! It really helps me to build my faith. God is Awesome! He works all things out for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28-29)!

Today my purpose in life is to know God at a more deeper and intimate level and to make him known and to glorify Him in everything I do. God has chosen me to be His servant and witness to fulfill the Great Commission: "Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age"—Matthew 28: 19-20. My hearts desire is to disciple girls and teach them how to make laborers for a lifetime. I want them to experience God the way I do and to show them His Greatness! If your questioning your salvation, then you should take the I John test. All of I John tests your faith in Christ to see if you really are a true follower of Him. I just want to challenge you with one last thing: On a scale of one to ten, where do you stand? And to examine your lives and ask yourselves what is my purpose in life?

I do not live with my parents anymore, but do have a wonderful relationship with them. I think through all this, our love for each other is even stronger now. They do see the things that Christ has done in our life. Most Indian girls are not suppose to live on there own, but my sister and I took a stand for Christ and He worked all things out. My sister is married to an American guy (January 22, 2005) and that was very badly looked upon by the Indian community. Today it has been accepted in my generation that it is okay if you marry someone outside of your race.  Through much prayer, God allowed my parents to come to the wedding (they were not going to come at first) and walk my sister down the aisle. They have accepted Nathan into my family and love and respect him so much. Not only that, my grandma and cousins even like him a lot. I am excited to see how God is going to use me and my future husband to reach out to them. God is so faithful to answer us and bless us in so many ways. My older sister may have become a believer this spring and I believe that my niece and nephew are believers as well. God works in amazing ways and I can't wait 'til the rest of my family comes to know him! We never dreamt that this would be possible, but again God makes the impossible = possible!