I met a young girl whose circumstances strangled her so tightly her dreams were close to death. Everything she ever aspired to be, everything she ever wanted to do, was said to be out of her reach because she is female. Life is not easy for a woman in India, and she is just beginning to understand that. Sometimes she feels broken. Sometimes she wants to destroy her life. Because she has no one; no mother, no father. No one. Sometimes she just doesn’t care whether she does good or bad. When life is so unfair nothing matters anymore. Its as if the world itself loathes her existence.
She heard a voice in her moment of despair: “You are my beloved child. I knew you before you were in your mother’s womb. I loved you even then. And every day my love grows deeper for you. I have never left you. I was with you when you felt alone. I knew every struggle you would face. And I am not done with you. I have a great plan for your life. A plan to prosper you; a plan to uplift you; a plan to increase your territory in my name. Simply keep your heart set on me, never forgetting that I am your Father who is always with you, and loves you unconditionally.” She says she will never forget these words. She will never forget this moment she was given a breath of life; when she saw herself the way God sees her; when her dreams felt within reach; when it didn’t matter how the world treated her anymore.