I was born into a Sikh family and was brought up with quite traditional and strict views and thoughts, and had to attend the Gudwara every Sunday without fail. My sister and I never took it seriously; we just went along because family used to force me. My parents then married me into another Sikh family just after 21 a year and a half later I fell pregnant. I experienced many problems in my marriage followed by depression and I felt suicidal constantly. I tried committing suicide twice, and basically started to seek for love in all the wrong places, different men, alcoholism started and attended many night clubs. I became very rebellious and bitter towards men. I divorced my husband due to all the marital problems we were experiencing at the back of my mind I knew God was there but didn’t know Jesus at the current time. Whilst this was going on I decided to run away to San Francisco and during my third day in San Francisco the man I ran away with died right in front of my eyes.

At this point in time I felt very depressed had to seek professional help, I was told to meet with a psychiatrist three times a week was given heavy dosages of anti depressants. I had no choice but to move back with my parents, because I was unable to cope looking after my child and needed assistance. I couldn’t turn the lights off at night because I used to hear voices at night telling me to kill myself and that I was useless, my life was worth nothing. I used to dress in black clothes all the time as all I could see was darkness surrounding me.

Before I came to Christ I wasted endless amounts of money on supernatural form and prayers and visited countless fortune tellers, I wasted time on not eating meat on certain days and taking butter and rice and sacrificing it in the Gudwara. Furthermore I didn’t wash my hair on Tuesdays as I believed it was superstitious.

One day I was sitting in my parents’ house, and I called out ‘whoever you are the living god, if you don’t reveal yourself to me I will kill myself’, soon after my mother visited my neighbours house who were Christians and asked if their daughter could come to see me. After this prayer God never answered me until the third day when I was dropping my son off at school. This day I wrote a suicidal note to my parents planning on not returning home, I had decided that this was the end but something kept pulling me back to my home I kept hearing a strong voice inside me. As I returned home my parents were screaming and shouting at me and at this point my Christian neighbours came running towards me and they did so Shanine screamed ‘Don’t do it it’s not worth it’, It was at this point I saw the bright light in Shanine. She said to me, ‘Jesus loves you’, and I replied, ‘who is Jesus, she explained to me very briefly who and what Jesus was.

I explained my story to her she told me all about who Jesus was, I then replied to her, ‘How much did it cost me?’, I thought the peace and love I was searching for would cost me due to all the money I had wasted in prayer at temples and Gudwara beforehand. That’s when she said, ‘It’s free, just open your heart and invite Jesus’. That is when I repented and accepted Christ. That is when I was granted victory.

From this day I was exactly 30 years old when I gave my life to Christ and it changed completely, I was given peace, hope, and a new direction in life. I was given a purpose to live. Not only this but soon after my husband and I were reunited and hopefully in June 2009 we are going to get remarried.