The Cross and the pen

  I would be very surprised if you don’t hear about an acquaintance, relative, friend, etc. passing away almost on a daily basis. Today, I heard about two people and the way they finished their innings on the earth. Two very different people, from very different places. I know one of them quite well and don’t know the other at all. Yet, their going away stories remains with me and I believe will remain with me for a long time.   He was a good family friend of ours. We knew him for a long time. He was greatly skilled in his line of work. He was a towering figure, not just in stature but also in his influence. I loved his humility most about him. Updates kept pouring in these last 10 days about his health condition. He personally updated us almost every day. He shared how he has been admitted to the hospital and then we learned how his levels were dropping, then he got better…. I wish the messages ended there. The next day he dipped again. That was the last message we got from h...

  Every time my phone pings, invariably it’s the message of one more person testing positive, or someone’s situation has become worse, and maybe once a day, somebody has died. The news of someone’s recovery is dwarfed by all the other news that makes you feel depressed. No beds, no oxygen cylinders, no ambulances, no doctors, nurses, etc. I open the news feed, Twitter, etc. and I get to visualize this great tragedy - ambulances, crying relatives…. sometimes you wish you were born in a different period in history. मैं अपने देश को देखता हूं और रोता हूं। मुझे मेरे घुटनों पर लाया गया है | मेरे खुदा तुम कहाँ हो? I look at my nation and weep…. I have been brought to my knees. My God where are you?   How do I find my footing in a time like this? What if the next phone call is the message of someone very close struggling to breathe? What if, this night, I start developing symptoms?   Where can I put my hope? What can I hold on to during a time like this?   My friend, I know ...

I am an Indian. In a country which has 33 crore Gods(almost 1 God for every 4 people) to say that I follow only one person as my Lord, is claiming something very exclusive. I am not a follower of Christ because: I have Christian sounding name I was born in a family where my parents are also Christians I go to church I celebrate Christian festivals such as Christmas(Actually I make it a point not to celebrate these festivals) I follow the rituals such as lent which are commonly associated with Christianity I must acknowledge at this point, that in my pursuit of finding the answers for the deeper questions of life, I found it in Jesus and I have not actively tried or experimented with other worldviews and religions.  For many people, one of the key goals of their life is to be good. I was not very different. To be good, I did a lot of work that would be considered good. I volunteered. I stopped using foul language. I stopped cheating in tests in school, stopped...

It was a morning flight from Bangalore. As much as I like the city, the gloomy weather which unfolds so very often there always doesn't help. I was on the flight to Delhi, leaving behind Abisha, my wife who was 9 months pregnant expecting our first child. I was feeling extremely low. I was uncertain about the different emotions I was experiencing. It was going to be the longest time I am going to be away from her especially when she needs me the most. But I knew that it has to play out this way for this season of our life and anyway I was going to meet her again in a month.   Yet the gloomy weather made me even more depressed. And life can do that to us. Circumstances, events, broken relationships, uncertain future, failures, setbacks can always create the gloomy weather around us. How do you feel at this point in your life? Gloomy, depressed and sad? It was just about a minute since the flight took off and we immediately felt the turbulence when the plane passes through ...

The Word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.” The next time you pick up the Bible, see how the different books are introduced. They are very interesting and different! The book of Jonah, is very direct and gets straight to the point. There was a problem, God wanted someone to get down under the car with the spanner and the wrench, get dirty and clean it up and that man was Jonah. Jonah, however strongly felt that he was not the man for the job. Bible scholars tell us different reasons why Jonah acted the way he did. Nineveh was a sinful and an arrogant city. Jonah was almost certain that sharing the news was pointless there…”these people are going to ridicule me, mock me…it’s throwing pearls before swine. God – I don’t like this plan. Please change it immediately and get back to me if it would be something that would interest me and go well with my personality.” ...

July 2014 was a great month for me! On the 11 th of July, I got a call from my office and heard that they had accepted me for the post I had applied for. Wow! That was great news but surprisingly, that was the second best news I had heard that weekend. The best news that I had over that weekend, beat the second best by light years. Life is an interesting journey… riddled with highways, narrow lanes, traffic jams, potholed filled roads, diversions, road blocks, one ways, breakdowns and many other features that you can see on any journey. In such a variety of pace and scenery it’s hard to know when, how and what decisions need to be taken. One such decision is about marriage. When do I take this decision? How should I take it? And more importantly who should I marry???? I just wish that it was as easy as it was for Adam, go to sleep, wake up and presto! There she was…. The woman God gave me. But it’s almost never that simple right? I was no different. The Bible says that God s...

I just want a normal life When I was a little girl, I had dreams. Not over the top, but just any little girl would have. I wanted to grow up, get married to a nice guy, have few children, raise them… Not asking too much am I? Just a dream to have a regular life with regular moments of happiness and sadness, pain and pleasures.. At first when things did not work out for me, I said to myself it’s just a matter of time before it falls in place… just a few hiccups now and then but there is light at the end of the tunnel and it’s just around the corner. I waited. It never happened. A life of satisfaction, peace and contentment never came. Was I too naïve when I was young to dream for a ‘normal’ life? Just before I hit 20, mom passed away. That was very difficult. I was close to her. Slowly, after a year, though it seemed like ten years, I knew I had to move on. Dad, however, was still mourning. Actually he never recovered. He would just sit back on his chair and stare into wha...