When I took the pen in my hand, I knew this would take some time. I shift the pen to my ears. I scratch my head awhile. I do not know what to write! It’s new that I have ‘nothing’ to write. Nothing!
You must be kidding me! I have so much; I have enough to blow your brains and burst your hearts! “Then what’s the matter, friend?”, you ask. Let me clarify with a simple example. Have you ever had a wardrobe full of clothes and yet you are in such a dilemma that you are stunned before your fabulous wardrobe? You pick one, and then wonder whether this is the best one for the day. I am in the same position where I can’t come to a decision. I am staring at the numerous blessings set before me wrapped in fabulous stories, stunned in wonder what to pick. So then the ‘suspense’ lies not in ‘Nothingness’ but in ‘Abundance’.
But amongst the tangible, the flashy, the ostentatious, lies hidden an untold story. It might be the simplest story, yet it is the most essential story of all: It is the story of God in JanPragati. Seven years have gone by in the finding of JanPragati. But the story goes much beyond. The story has many facets and many fascinating edges. But I can edge into that one that concerns my own life.
Well, where do I begin His story, looking from my vantage point? I could begin probably in 2002, when a group of young guys called upon a bunch of slum children to a nearby church. This is the first time I beheld slum life. I could not believe pain could take a very attractive form. There were little urchins crowded in that dingy shed, where the stench blew at me whips of love. How could I miss that love which was not mine; that was never mine. That was a love that belonged only to God. This love had an alien touch to it. I became a steward of it then. I began the teaching then. There were laughs and smiles and fights and all that. But then, it was a mystery; a fairy tale told about the witches’ den. I was exhausted after they all left. I sat down tired and helpless; an urge in me crawling up to challenge myself to teach them. It was the story of God in JP.
I did not want to do it a second time. But I did again. I taught them again. I never stopped teaching them ever since: it is definitely God’s story in JP. If I became unconscious of the story of His love, it would project itself so proudly that I was arrested to see it again. So then I would have told you how I first did with it. But it was never my story: it was always His story. So that is why I keep all other fabulous stories for another time, to tell you the one true story of JP: the story of his abounding presence!
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