Forced to Marry at Twelve — But Jesus Set Me Free

Rani’s Testimony

My Childhood

I was born in the small village of Renishaw on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, on August 24, 1960.

My parents had thirteen children, and I was the second youngest. We belonged to the Hindu religion.

My parents were very poor. My father was disabled, and my mother received a government pension to help support us.

I loved going to school. I attended Umzinto Secondary School, and although my school uniforms were very old, I was happy to be there.

While I was in Standard 5, however, something happened that would completely change the course of my life.

Unknown to my father, my mother contacted one of his relatives and told him that if he was interested in marriage, she would give me to him as his wife.

He agreed.

My mother was afraid that I might one day become pregnant outside of marriage and bring shame upon the family. She thought that by choosing a husband for me, I would be provided for, have a family of my own, and no longer be her responsibility.

Meanwhile, my father had spent his disability grant money buying me new school clothes and shoes so that I could continue my education.

He had no idea what my mother was arranging.

When he found out, he did not approve.

“This Is the Man I Want You to Marry”

One day my mother came to me and said:

“I want you to marry this man and have your own family.”

I was only twelve years old.

I did not really understand what she was saying.

Then she introduced me to him.

“This is the man I want you to spend the rest of your life with.”

I did not love him.

I did not want to marry him.

But I felt that I had to obey and please my mother.

My father was angry about the whole situation, but he seemed unable to stop it.

My mother then arranged for this man to move into our house.

I was still in Standard 5 and travelled by bus to school each day. When I stepped off the bus in the afternoon, the man my mother had chosen would be waiting for me.

He would put my schoolbag on his bicycle, and we would walk home together.

Often, I would not say a single word to him.

I wanted to get rid of him.

But my mother watched me closely. Anything I said or did that displeased him would be reported to her, and she would punish me.

This happened again and again.

My Schooling Came to an End

I managed to pass Standard 5 and entered Standard 6.

Then, during the first week of March 1974, my schooling suddenly ended.

That day, I wore the school clothes my father had bought me for the last time.

When I came home, my mother told me:

“You are not going back to school.”

I did not understand why.

But I was afraid, so I said nothing.

My mother had told the social workers that she was sending me to live with my eldest sister because she could no longer afford to support me.

But that was not what was actually happening.

She intended for me to begin living as a married woman.

I resisted.

I did not want the man my mother had chosen for me anywhere near me.

But while I was at home full-time, he took advantage of me.

Soon I became pregnant with our first daughter.

With much shouting, fighting, and unhappiness, I eventually submitted to the life my mother had chosen for me.

We remained with my parents until I was nine months pregnant.

Afterward, the Renishaw company, where my husband worked, provided us with a house.

After our daughter was born, we went to court and were legally married, registering the baby at the same time.

Sixteen Years of Misery

My husband’s drinking became progressively worse.

He was also unfaithful to me a number of times.

During our sixteen years of marriage, he worked for only about three years altogether.

We moved from place to place.

At times we lived in tin shanties with leaking roofs. Rain poured inside. Sometimes we had no running water or electricity and had to draw water from ponds.

Eventually, we had three children—two daughters and a son.

But my husband became an alcoholic.

He began selling our clothes, our food, our kitchenware, our saucepans, and whatever else he could find.

He even sold the children’s clothes.

He stole money I had put aside to pay the rent and other accounts.

Day and night, he was drunk.

Deeply Religious, But Without Peace

We had grown up as staunch Hindus and worshipped many gods.

My husband became deeply involved in Hindu religious ceremonies. He would enter trances during temple rituals. At religious festivals, his body would be pierced with needles through his cheeks and tongue, and hooks would be placed into the flesh of his back and chest.

Sometimes coconuts were hung from these hooks.

On other occasions, hooks were placed in his back so that he could pull decorated chariots from the temple grounds toward the river.

We had a temple beside our house and another shrine in part of our bedroom. There were pictures and statues of Hindu gods, together with brass lamps, incense, and camphor.

I myself became deeply involved in Hindu religious practice.

I acted as a guru, chanting and meditating before idols. I taught the Tamil language, led ceremonies, participated in funeral services with singing, and was often called upon to help Hindu families.

On Sundays, I conducted ceremonies at public temples.

I was intensely religious.

But religion could not give me peace.

The Christians Who Prayed for Me

During this period, I found employment as a gardener at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Martin in Scottburgh South on the Natal coast.

I worked with my baby son strapped to my back.

After a few months, I began working inside the house as a maid. Altogether, I remained in their employment for twelve years.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin treated me kindly. Mrs. Martin’s elderly parents, who lived with them, were committed Christians.

They were humble people.

They prayed for me constantly.

Whenever they saw that I was troubled by what was happening at home, they would speak to me about the Lord Jesus Christ and show me passages from the Bible.

They also had missionary friends from the Church of the Nazarene who visited each week to pray and read God’s Word with them.

Sometimes they would pray together in their bedroom.

And I would listen through the keyhole.

I heard them praying for me.

But I did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Instead, I challenged them with the gods I worshipped.

Everything Was Falling Apart

My husband went from bad to worse.

We seldom spoke to each other.

There was no happiness in our home.

I suffered from deep depression, and all I knew to do was cry to my Hindu gods for help.

The care and schooling of our three children became my responsibility.

My husband also began suffering from epileptic seizures, sometimes falling and seriously injuring himself.

I took him to Hindu temples and rehabilitation centres, searching desperately for help.

Nothing changed.

After sixteen years, I finally gave up on the marriage and filed for divorce.

My husband went to live with his family.

Strangely, after he left, instead of turning away from Hinduism, I became even more devoted to my religion.

But God was about to change everything.

The Bible Beside Gran’s Chair

In March 1993, something happened that changed my life.

Mrs. Martin’s 86-year-old father died, and her mother—the woman we affectionately called Gran—went to live with her youngest daughter, Mrs. Liebenberg, in Port Elizabeth.

For the first time, when my employers went to work, I was alone in their house.

One morning, at about 9:30, I went into the living room.

I sat down in Gran’s chair with a cup of tea.

Suddenly, I became emotional and began to cry.

I felt so alone.

I was raising three children by myself, and I had been asking my Hindu gods to send me another husband because I desperately wanted someone with whom to share my life.

I cried and begged my gods to help me.

Then my hand reached toward something lying on the little table beside Gran’s chair.

It was her Bible.

I picked it up.

I placed it on my lap.

And for the first time in my life, I opened a Bible.

My eyes fell upon Isaiah chapter 54.

As I read, certain words seemed to speak directly into my broken heart:

“Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed…”

And then:

“For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel.”

I had been crying because I wanted a husband.

And now I was reading:

“For thy Maker is thine husband.”

I closed the Bible and went into the kitchen to prepare the table before my employers returned for lunch.

But something drew me back.

I opened the Bible again.

This time I read Matthew 7:7:

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

I did not understand everything that was happening.

After work, I quietly went home.

I told nobody.

“The Lord Jesus Christ Is the Only God”

Meanwhile, something unusual had happened to my eldest brother, Michael.

While he was taking a bath at his own home, he thought he heard my voice speaking to him, although I was nowhere near his house.

He dressed, gathered his family, and came to my home to make sure I was all right.

While we were sitting together in the living room, the television was on.

An advertisement showing Hindu gods appeared on the screen.

Suddenly my brother said:

“Hey, Rani, these things are not gods at all. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only God.”

I was stunned.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

He told me that he had been attending a Christian prayer meeting during his lunch break at work.

My brother and his wife had begun reading the Bible at home.

But whenever I visited, they hid it beneath a pillow because they respected my position as a Hindu religious leader and were afraid of offending me.

Now I told them something that shocked them.

“I have read the Bible too.”

We began talking.

And before long, we decided that we wanted to become Christians.

“What If I Die Tonight?”

My mother was living with me at the time. She was 68 years old.

We approached her and asked what she thought.

She said that if her eldest son chose to become a Christian, she would be willing to follow his example.

There was tremendous excitement in our home.

But then I hesitated.

There were two family weddings coming soon.

Perhaps, I thought, I should wait two months.

Then one question came powerfully to my heart:

What if I die tonight? Where will I go?

I could not put it off.

That same week, my mother, my brother’s family, and my own family turned to Christ and began attending a Christian church.

Jesus Changed My Heart

My divorce was finalized.

But something far greater happened inside me.

I was able to release my former husband and forgive him.

After everything that had happened—the forced relationship, the drinking, the unfaithfulness, the poverty, the years of pain—I could forgive.

My Hindu relatives were angry and rejected me because I had become a Christian.

But with time, there was forgiveness and reconciliation.

I have since faced trials and sickness.

But through them all, the Lord Jesus Christ has set me free.

No Turning Back

I am now in God’s service.

I work with elderly people, helping to bathe and care for them, praying with them, and speaking to them in Tamil.

I also visit people from door to door, counsel married couples experiencing difficulties, and work with young people.

Wherever the Lord leads me, I want to go.

My children are now grown and married.

When I look back, I see a little girl who loved school but had her childhood taken from her.

I see a twelve-year-old girl who was told whom she must marry.

I see years of poverty, abuse, alcoholism, unfaithfulness, depression, bitterness, and religious bondage.

I see a woman surrounded by idols, chanting before them and desperately searching for help.

And then I see an old woman’s empty chair.

A little table.

And a Bible lying upon it.

I reached for that Bible while crying for help.

And through His Word, God began drawing me to Jesus Christ.

I thank God for saving me.

I thank Him for forgiving my sins.

I thank Him for the Christians who prayed for me when I did not believe.

I thank Him for those who patiently taught me His Word.

I have no regrets about becoming a Christian.

I love studying the Word of God and serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the only Book that gave me life and a purpose for living.

There is no turning back.

Jesus Christ set me free.

No turning back!

—Rani