With God I Saw My Father

B Ganesan was how my father was known. Once he met my mother Susheela Pandian, and told her that he would be there for her, if she should need him. She was close to her forties and unmarried. She couldn't find a suitable Christian to marry her, when this Hindu coworker boldly asserted to her that he would be there for her. She believed him and decided to marry him. For her sake B Ganesan left his Hindu family and joined her Christian family. In November of 1970, he stepped into a church with her and married her after he converted to the Christian faith with the new name George Godfrey.

In February of 1972 George and Susheela had a son whom they named Samuel. I happen to be that Samuel. My father, though a Hindu, never practised his faith at home. He privately worshipped his Hindu God Murugan throughout his life. While I was a baby he purportedly sacrificed my first hair to his Hindu God. Since then he never told me to worship any God, whether Hindu or Christian. As a child I had a dream in which I saw a train of fire raging across the sky, and to that fire I cried out in English, a language that was not my native tongue, "I will serve you!" Soon after that dream I sat at the entrance of my home yearning to see Jesus. "I want to see Jesus, I want to see Him now!" I said. And my father said to me, "You will see Him some day."

My father never offered me any religious instruction or guidance. I grew up largely ignorant of God. But crucially he placed me in a Christian school when I was eleven and placed me in another one when I was fifteen. From these schools I gained certain rudiments of Christianity. My mother who was a Christian introduced me to her church and to the Christian fellowship she actively participated in at her office. I was not drawn to these, but I was drawn to an English-speaking church in the neighbourhood, which I regularly attended. But even attendance at this church did not lead to any real enlightenment concerning Jesus Christ and the Christian life.

For years I played the role of a wayward son not particularly inclined to my father. I despised my father, as I found him rough and uncouth. He also seemed to be a particularly uncaring man, appearing nearly always to be dissatisfied and angry with me. My father and I rarely spoke to each other as the years progressed, and seldom communicated anything pleasant. I imagined that he thought little of me. And I in turn thought little of him. I found him unlikeable and wished that I had another father, someone I could admire and like. I was ashamed to been seen next to him and avoided him often. I never took pleasure in introducing him to someone as my father. And tragically this was how our relationship was most of the time.

Yet my father proved to be a decisive influence on me. While I was a child, he denigrated me in front of my friend for my lack of proficiency in the English language. It was then that I decided to disprove him by learning to speak English in a way that would surprise him and many others in the years to come. When as a teenager I insisted on studying English as a main subject, he was enraged by my choice and cursed me that I would be a good-for-nothing all my life. He even told me to mark his words. So it was not easy for me to like my father.

It was only after I met God in my early thirties that I became aware of the man whom I had never happily acknowledged as my earthly father. God stirred in me an inexplicable love for the man whom I had greatly disdained, and also caused my heart to be repentant for the way I had treated him. Just before my father passed away, God instilled a great urge in me to apologise to my father and seek his forgiveness. I lay flat before my father, and kissed his feet in repentance. I asked him to forgive me. Before I left him for a final time I embraced and kissed him and asked for his blessing. And my father gave me his blessing.

Today, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death, I remember my father with gratitude. He may not have always shown himself to be a loving or caring man. Very often he revealed himself to be the opposite. But with God I was able to see my father in a way that I could have never seen him before. I saw a man who loved me and cared for me in his own flawed way. I saw a father who wept for his child when he nearly lost his eye. I saw a man who cared for me in small yet memorable ways. I saw a man who never really asked me to be anything but myself. I saw a father whom I had never seen before. With God I saw my father. And today my eyes well with tears again, this time in gratitude to God for enabling me to see my father and to love him like a son before he passed away from this world. Thank you Father for showing me my father.

Samuel Godfrey George
    09 August 2014
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