Portraits in Faith: Devakumari Hiller Preview

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DIVORCE AND FAITH

One of the times I doubted my faith was when I wanted to marry my husband who is here in Berlin. He’d been divorced. He had a daughter, then who was 8- or 9-years-old. And I was in England with a group of ladies. I did not have a real church because of where I was training. It was quite difficult to get there; I was only able to get to church maybe twice a month. So I never really had this kind of congregation.

I had a few friends, all of whom were against my relationship. They knew that I was having a relationship with Carlo. But then when I decided to marry him, they said: “Oh God. He’s divorced! That is written in the Bible, you know? He is divorced and he’s been married.” And this, and that.

And I kept thinking to myself, “Oh God. What do I do?” I started to doubt…. I would not say I doubted my religion. I said, “You cannot condemn a person just because of his past. Somehow you must give them a chance to get back to the community.” That was my very strong point about it.

Surely I was in love with him and had a different kind of feeling about the whole thing. I think it was not doubting the religion, but it was the people around me who practiced the religion.

I resolved that by going against them.

I remember when I left England to go out to Berlin. I was here for about two or three months before I got married. I got a letter from somebody at church who I did not consider a very close friend; she was a spiritual friend. She was very, very strict on how she interpreted the Bible. A letter from her arrived a month before we got married and she said that I was committing a sin. I prayed about it, but I felt that I had the peace within myself.

I spoke to my husband about it. We spoke about it because Carlo was not a believing Christian. After his divorce, he was quite torn about his relationship with church. The main part of the divorce was his fault, but it does not matter. He left the church because he felt that he did not get the support from it.

We got married but not in a church because Carlo was not ready to get married in a church. I told him that, for me, it was just important that I got a blessing and that he come to church with me after we were married, and, at some point, I would go to church with him. We didn’t have to stand in front of a priest to just say a prayer for myself and for him. And that’s what we did. So that’s I guess how I resolved my doubt.