A
HINDU SERPENT GODDESS GIVES HER LIFE TO THE LORD JESUS
In southern India,
some missionaries visited the home of a young Hindu considered by all
to be the goddess of serpents. They shared the Gospel with her.
Later, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to her. After recognizing Him
as the One the Christians have spoken about, she accepted Him as her
personal Savior and Lord.
In Hindu belief, the
serpent is considered a divine creature worthy of worship in temples
dedicated to it or in their natural habitat, says Bibles for Mideast,
an organization dedicated to church planting in the Middle East that
reports this testimony.
For the young
Nagamma, raised in a family of the Dalit class (still called
“untouchable”) one of the categories located on the lowest rung
of the social scale of India, life was far from easy. Without a job,
her father decided to devote himself to black magic and taught her
daughter witchcraft from an early age.
Nagamma, a first
name meaning "mother of serpents" had been used to
worshiping snakes and caring for them very early on. As a child, she
fed the local snakes by carrying milk to the edge of their borough.
She also joined members of her community in the border area between
the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to worship this animal in a
special temple dedicated to snakes.
As time went on, her
love for many idols, and in particular the snake gods, only
increased.
One day, when she
was 12, a cobra lifted its head and bit her as she tried to bring
milk to it. Her parents took her to a local non-traditional doctor
who was unable to completely remove the poison from her body.
After three days,
her health improved but some side effects appeared. Nagamma began to
act strangely. Her body has transformed to the point that her skin
took on a bluish tint. Her mind itself was affected as she began to
act like a snake. Soon all she wanted to do was sit in the temple
dedicated to snakes. The worshipers at the temple then began to treat
her like a serpent goddess, and her father told her that indeed, she
had become one.
As her fame grew,
people in her community and beyond began to offer her offerings of
milk, fruit and flowers. They gave her money, bowed down to her, and
believed that if she touched them, they would be blessed.
“I asked if I
could visit them in their homes,” she explains. In return for
financial consideration, she invoked her father's black magic for the
destruction of the enemies of the families she met and therefore
hoped to bring blessings to them.
When Bibles for
Mideast missionaries visited Nagamma and her family, they gave them
pamphlets on Christianity and the Bible and shared the Good News of
Jesus. Her father argued that since her daughter was a goddess,
Christians should follow her. It was not for Nagamma to follow Jesus.
After the Christians
from Bibles for Mideast left, Nagamma visited a family to once again
perform rites of black magic.
“Something unusual
happened there,” she recalls. "Satan instructed me that there
was a treasure of gold in this house and that I should sacrifice the
child under three months old to find the treasure."
Nagamma then had to
face an intense spiritual struggle that she had never faced before.
She was unable to "complete the dark magic for this house and
the baby's life was saved after she ran away."
The prayers of the
missionaries of Bibles for Mideast had had an effect in the heavenly
places.
In her room that
evening, she had a remarkable visit which she reported to this
underground organization:
“A handsome Man in
white came to my house and sat down next to me,” she said in
wonder.
Her room was filled
with a brilliant light like she had never seen. When the Man showed
her His hands, she could see what looked like nail injuries.
This Man said to
her, “Daughter, you are valuable to Me. I am Your Lord and Your
God. I give you the treasure of peace and eternal life. I am the
Door. Those who come to Me will be saved; They will go in and out and
find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came
for you to have life. Life in all its fullness!"
Nagamma had heard
these words from the Christian visitors to her home. Nagamma then
recognized the Man in her dream as being Jesus Christ! Overwhelmed
with emotion, she knelt before Him and accepted Him as her personal
Savior and Lord.
In the days that
followed, her heart changed to the point of leading her to perform
daring deeds.
“I broke all the
idols in the snake temple myself,” she said. “My parents and
those who believed in me as the serpent goddess didn't like it. They
told me I was angry. They tied me to a tree and beat me. I had to
face a lot of other persecution. But I did not lose my faith in Jesus
and I wanted to be baptized.”
Nagamma therefore
contacted Bibles for Mideast and asked to be baptized. Her parents
and brothers all joined her in the faith. A prayer tent for Christian
worship now stands on the very spot where the Temple of the Snakes
was previously erected.
SOURCE:
Chretiens2000
