Pradesh Shrestha : Finding God in death bed

I had never seriously considered the reality of God nor my lack of relationship and responsibility to Him until September 1983 when I lay seriously ill on a hospital bed in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There, in an isolation room in St. Patrick's Hospital, the doctor told me they had finally diagnosed my illness; the antibiotic I would have to take was known to be potentially lethal for some patients but there was no viable alternative.

I was shocked. I agreed to take the medicine but that night I could not sleep. Where will I go if I die now? For the first time in my life, I took an honest look at myself. And when I did so my conscience was troubled, because, whereas I had always perceived myself to be a good person, now I saw myself as one with something fundamentally wrong within. If there is a Heaven and if there is a Hell, I felt I would end up in Hell.

My Religious Background
I was born in the Hindu Kingdom of Nepal. My parents, specially my mother, had always worshipped idols, observed rituals, fasts and holy days on the Hindu calendar. My mother deeply believed in reincarnation, the Hindu doctrine that the soul is almost endlessly reborn in one body after another. The Hindu concept of salvation is liberation from this supposed chain of rebirths and the sufferings of life. On important religious days, we would go as a family to Nepal's most renowned Hindu shrine, the Temple of Pashupatinath in Kathmandu where we bowed down to idols. As any other Hindu boy I had grown up fascinated with the stories of Rama, the hero of the Hindu epic Ramayana, and Krishna, the hero of the other great Hindu epic Mahabharata.

I went to a school in Kathmandu run by Jesuit Catholic priests. There I had some exposure to what I thought was the Christian Religion. But, in fact, we were never explicitly taught any Catholic doctrines nor from the Bible. The only exception I can remember is that we once memorized the Ten Commandments. However, the Second Commandment mentioned in the Bible, namely, the prohibition of idol worship (Exodus 20:4-6; Deuteronomy 5:8-10) was, oddly enough, excluded, thus giving me an impression that Christianity was somewhat like Hinduism. It seemed to me that the Christian idols were the statues of Mary and the crucifix, that every Jesuit wore around the neck, one of which was also hung up in every classroom.

During the nine years of Jesuit schooling, although I was taught morals (for which I'm thankful), I learned nothing about the Person of Jesus Christ -- that He is fully God who came in human flesh 2000 years ago -- and His finished work of substitutionary death on the cross for our sins and His subsequent resurrection from the dead, all in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies which were written centuries before He was born in Bethlehem of Judea in Israel. Thus I reached Class Ten, in total ignorance of the Bible that contains this wonderful message of salvation. By then my vague and confused personal belief was that all things come by chance via the random process of evolution and that physical death forever ends the existence of a person. I had no idea of my absolute accountability to God nor of the eternal misery that awaited my Christless soul.

I Begin to Realize I Am a Sinner
So as I lay awake late at night on my hospital bed, I found myself without God, without hope, all by myself, filled with memories of my childhood and youth. At school I had been a relatively good student securing desirable grades. I was, I suppose, even liked by most of my peers and teachers. Generally, I felt good about myself that I was not like others who did many unseemly things openly and unashamedly. But now I saw myself in a different light. Had I not also cheated in exams? Had I not been proud of my so-called achievements and despised my colleagues inwardly?

Out of view of my teachers, had I not sometimes been very unkind and dealt selfishly with my friends? I repeatedly lied, coveted, and sometimes stole, too, never hating my wickedness in doing so, but instead making every attempt to hide my sins, fearing I might get caught. Moreover, at home in the family, had I not often grieved my parents with haughty words and stubborn disobedience? Had I not harbored deep ill feelings towards my brother? Countless sins of my youth haunted me. And though I had once worshipped Hindu gods and though I grew up under Jesuit education, I had no knowledge of the True and Living God. Out of desperation I cried, "God, if you are there, don't let me die. I will change my ways." Indeed, before then, I had never thought I was a sinner that needed any change. On the other hand, I did not yet know that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and incurably sick, unable to change and rescue itself from its wretched condition of self-centered, self-deified existence. Gradually, the medication did its work and I got better. But as I got better, I gave less and less thought to the things my conscience had so keenly felt at the hospital. Few months later someone asked me about my health. I replied thoughtlessly that luck had always favoured me, even in the case of my illness. The person knowingly made a strange remark, "Maybe, it's not luck!"

The Light of the Glorious Gospel
At that time, I was a student at The Arman d Hammar United World College of the American West located in New Mexico. Graduation Day came. It was difficult parting from the dear friends from all over the world. A few of us remained on campus doing summer jobs. A Jordanian classmate and I shared a room together. I used to receive letters from "Mom", the mother of Shaunna, a student from the Midwest who had once invited a dozen of us international students to her home for Christmas. I liked to write to her also, just commonplace things. She is the one who had commented, "Maybe, it's not luck!" One day in June that summer, one of Mom's letters arrived. I was reading it aloud to my roommate. A short paragraph in the letter strangely arrested me, and I could not read it aloud anymore for tears welled up in my eyes. This is what was written. She wrote that the previous Sunday they were singing a hymn at church: