I mentioned in my last blog that I’ve wanted to be a missionary in India since I was a little girl. Part of wanting to serve in India means that I have studied the lives of those who have gone before me. One such person was the indomitable Amy Carmichal.
Amy Carmichal was a missionary in India in the 1800’s. One of the things that she is most well-known for is… kidnapping. At the time that Amy Carmichal was living in India, it was a common practice for poor girls to be sold as “brides” to temple gods. The girls would be sold young, often even in infancy. As a bride to the gods, the girls were then raped by priests (representatives of the gods), or pimped out to wealthy patrons of the temples. Once Amy became aware of this injustice, she made it one of her life goals to rescue girls sold to the temples. She travelled all over India for the rest of her life, walking brazenly into the temples and ferreting children away. She would take them to a communal home in Southern India where a motley assortment of British missionaries and Indian locals lived, where the girls would be educated, taught a trade, and showered with love.
Amy Carmichal was a missionary in India in the 1800’s. One of the things that she is most well-known for is… kidnapping. At the time that Amy Carmichal was living in India, it was a common practice for poor girls to be sold as “brides” to temple gods. The girls would be sold young, often even in infancy. As a bride to the gods, the girls were then raped by priests (representatives of the gods), or pimped out to wealthy patrons of the temples. Once Amy became aware of this injustice, she made it one of her life goals to rescue girls sold to the temples. She travelled all over India for the rest of her life, walking brazenly into the temples and ferreting children away. She would take them to a communal home in Southern India where a motley assortment of British missionaries and Indian locals lived, where the girls would be educated, taught a trade, and showered with love.
When Amy was a girl growing up in Victorian London, she was told she was an ugly child. The fashionable Victorian child was plump, rosy cheeked, angelically blond, and, most importantly, blue-eyed. Amy herself was wiry with flat brown hair and deep brown eyes. At night, she would cry in her prayers and ask God to make her beautiful. “God, please, if you can’t make me beautiful, just give me blue eyes.” As an adult in India, she realized that if she didn’t have brown eyes, she would have been marked instantly as a foreigner, subject to suspicion when going to temples. Her brown eyes and dark hair gave her anonymity, allowing her to rescue countless girls.
I’ve been thinking about this story a lot lately. A couple of weeks ago, I started going to counseling sessions with my pastor’s wife. One of the things we’ve talked about is that the way God has made me is good. My personality, my experiences, and the family I was raised in were all chosen by God to utilize for his good works. Unlike Amy, I have never prayed that God would change my body. But I have wanted other parts of me to change… I have loathed myself for being so distracted, so disorganized. I have wished that I wouldn’t be so emotional, so easily moved to anger and sadness, so uncontrollably giddy when happy. I have alternately hated either my withdrawals into solitude or my over-exuberance in crowds. Thinking about Amy, about how even her eyes were crafted for a purpose, I’ve begun to wonder if I should celebrate a little more that I am the way I am. The very things about myself that I wish would change may in fact be the things that will allow me to serve God the best.
I only hope that God has as great plans for me as he did for Amy…
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