Alive in Christ Testimony of Thenmozhi Aniyan

Alive In Christ

Thenmozhi Aniyan Testimony of

the middle of the night, I woke up from the bed with fear, trembling, shivering, sweating and looking around while others were sleeping peacefully. Yes, that was the night I heard the voice of The Living God three times, hearing “your faith will save you.” It happened sixteen years ago, in 2003, and it was the turning point in my life. I knew nothing about Jesus except knowing that he is a god of the Christians sinceI was born and brought up in an Orthodox Hindu family. The place where I grew up is a village, where only Hindus live and we had no access to Christianity and Christianity had no access to our village. My forefathers only built the temples in our village. We were very spiritual and worshipped our gods faithfully. I was brought up well. I had never felt that I was a sinner and I needed a Saviour. I never realized the importance of knowing Jesus Christ.But God has his own way to reveal Himself to his chosen ones. In His time, He brought me out of my village with a divine purpose.While I was searching for a job after my graduation, my cousin who married a Christian and got converted to the Christian faith invited me to stay with them and search for a job. So my parents sent me there but my relatives and friends warned me not to go there as Christians would convert others to their faith. So I was very careful and strong in my faith. I used to be alone and chant mantras and offer prayers when they had family prayer. As time passed, they slowly started talking about Jesus Christ and some students from the nearby Bible Collegeused to visit me and share the gospel with me. I didn't like it. I used to argue with them and defend my faith. It was our practice that every morning after having a shower, I used to chant mantras and offer prayers to our god. Butone morning as usual, when I sat to chant mantras I could not do it and I was verydisturbed.I became disappointed in my religious life as something was troubling me and for the first time I felt unsatisfied. One midnight while I was in deep sleep, as I stated in In

the beginning, I heard a voice saying, “your faith will save you” and the voice was very clear and I heard it three times. I never had such an experience and had no idea what was happening. The next morning, I shared it with my cousin and she told me that it was the voice of God and she suggested me to read the Bible.I never heard that our gods speak to people through dreams or visions but when I realized that the god of Christians speak to people through dreams and visions, I became so curious to know about him and started to read the Bible. I started reading the Gospels and there I encountered Jesus who came to the world to save the people from sin. I started to make sense of what my cousin and the Bible college students were sharing with me about Jesus.I got convinced that I was a sinner and only through faith I would be saved by His grace.The Gospels introduced Jesus not as the god of Christians but as the Saviour of the world. I felt delivered from a system which kept us blind towards the reality of sin and eternal death. My eyes were opened to see the sinfulness of the human heart and the need to be saved. I sensed that I was lost but was found by Jesus and experienced the peace of God Which I cannot explain in words but started enjoying the inexpressible joy of being found by Jesus. As I have found a new identity in Christ and felt belonging to a new family of God, my heart grieved for my parents and siblings who continued to follow the worthless system which offered nothing more than a sense of fear, hopelessness, and disappointment. But they were content with their age old religious system and were dead against my newly found faith in Jesus. My mother was upset that I stopped doing pujas and renounced all the systems we were following for generations. What they had feared has happened that I became a follower of Jesus Christ. My relatives suggested to get me out of the Christian environment, but by that time I got a job in the Bible college which they did not want me to lose. The options before me

were either to remain as a secret Christian and follow our parent's system or to sever the family ties and come out. Both these options were not viable as I could no longer remain silent because I found a great treasure in Jesus as well as my family relations were too strong that I had no strength to cut off. So I found a third option which was to pray earnestly to God for opening the eyes of my family members to see the light of the Gospel. My first prayer was for the salvation of my parents and siblings because I could not think of them missing the joy of knowing Jesus the true God. I knew very well that the God who spoke to me in the midnight and convinced me that our salvation comes from Jesus through faith in him, alone can convince my family members. So I was relentless in my prayer and I pleaded with God to save my family. I slowly introduced Jesus to my mother and two siblings and gave them a Bible to read, but had no courage to tell anything to my father. I had serious discussions and we prayed together. God generated interest in their lives and He gradually convinced them that Jesus only is true God. I could see the work of God in their lives and they started growing in their faith in Jesus Christ. We four of us prayed for our father with burden for three long years because as I said, I had no audacity to tell my father that I have found a saviour in Jesus Christ. In fact, my father was a numerologist and people in the village consulted him for predicting the future and solving the problems in their families. But he was a restless and broken person who never experienced true peace or joy in his life. I knew very well that only Jesus could give him peace and convince him of who He is. God is gracious and compassionate who listens to our prayers and honours our desires. One night my father also had a vision of Jesus holding a crown in his hand and he too sensed the call of God to renounce his ways and follow Jesus. I strongly believe that God answered our prayers and convicted him of his sins and the salvation through Jesus Christ. It was a turning point in his life. He too received the salvation God offered him in Jesus Christ.God honoured my desire of getting baptized together and five of us got baptized on27thMay2007. It was a bit challenging to live in the village as the only Christian family in the entire village. But God has given the boldness to my parents to stay in the village and share the faith with others. Now my father goes around the village to pray for others and to share the Good News with our neighbours. We believe that God will deliver many in our villages to experience the love of Jesus. Praise and thanks be to our God who delivers us from the darkness and gives us the joy of Salvation. Who can resist when God transforms the hearts? Who can stop God when he converts people from falsehood to truth, from death to life? In the meantime, as God was working in us to bring us out of the darkness, my close relatives who were very staunch practitioners of their faith thought of getting me married with a Hindu boy to get me out of the Christian circles I became part of. They brought several proposals and were forcing me to get married. However, I decided to marry only a Christian believer and also wanted to be in the service of this God who saved me though I had no idea of what Christian service was all about. So while I was praying for my family's salvation, I sincerely prayed for a life partner with whom I can serve God because I deeply desired to be employed by God for his great cause. God was gracious in answering that prayer as well. In his sovereign provision, God brought a godly man from Kerala into my life through a leader of the church and we got married in 2008.God blessed us with two lovely children and we had the honour of serving God in different places in different capacities. The greatest joy in my life is knowing Christ and the greatest honour in my life is serving Him. I thank God for His divine plan and purpose for us. No one can thwart it. Praise be to Him alone!