Four Thousand Miles

“I will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart that can feel.” — from Ezekiel 36

Now only Ramabai and her brother Srinivas were left. They had no home and no money. For more than three years they walked across India, from the south all the way north to Kashmir and then east to the great city of Calcutta. Ramabai worked it out later: they had walked more than four thousand miles!

They had no shoes, no blankets and no umbrellas. Sometimes Srinivas found work, but he was paid only a tiny amount. Often they had nothing to eat but a handful of grain soaked in water. One freezing night, beside a river in the far north, they dug two long hollows in the sand, lay down in them, and covered themselves with sand right up to their necks to keep warm.

Later Ramabai said something surprising. Being hungry and sad, she said, had not made her kinder. It had made her heart hard, like a stone. Only God, she believed, could give her a soft, loving heart again.

In 1878 they reached Calcutta. The wise teachers there were amazed by this young woman who knew so many Sanskrit poems by heart. They gave her a great title of honour. From then on, people called her Pandita Ramabai, which means “Ramabai the learned lady.”

In Calcutta, for the first time, she met Christians. They gave her a Bible in Sanskrit. She tried to read it, but did not understand it, so she put it away. But she kept it all her life.

She also read the old law books of her people very carefully. She was shocked. The books said that women were bad, and that no woman could ever be saved just as she was. Ramabai felt there was no hope for her. She wanted something more, but she did not know what.

Hard times can make our hearts hard. But God loves to give us soft hearts that care about other people. You can ask him for one today.

Dear God, please take away any hardness in my heart. Give me a heart that is kind and loves other people. Amen.