Stones of Remembrance: Jwanel’s Story

17 Oct

"How did you become a Christian?" is the question we every Chip Lunch episode. Most guests have a clear answer—a moment, a prayer, a decision. But when Jwanel Abraham sat down to think about her testimony for the first time, she found herself drawn the book of Joshua.

After crossing the Jordan River into the promised land, God instructs Joshua to have the tribes take stones from the riverbed—not as monuments to Moses or Abraham or their ancestors, but as reminders of what God had personally done for them. Tangible markers of His faithfulness in their own lives.

"I think I'm just going to have to ask Jesus one day," Jwanel laughs when pressed about the exact moment she became a Christian. "He's going to have to reveal it to me because I genuinely feel like I've always had those two things—he exists, he's real, and he's good."

But those stones in her life? She knows exactly where those are.

Before She Was Even Born

The first stone is from the year 2000, though the story begins earlier. Jwanel's parents, faithful and careful and not big risk-takers at all, were living in Chennai in South India. Her father was just trying to make ends meet, renting a tiny flat, when Jwanel's grandfather received a word from the Lord: you're going to leave this land and settle somewhere else.

It seemed impossible. They weren't wealthy. They didn't own property. Her dad thought his father-in-law had lost it.

But her grandfather was insistent. "You need to apply for passports," he kept saying. Eventually, Jwanel's mom felt the same prompting. Her dad, doing something that felt completely crazy, applied for passports for a journey that would never happen in a million years.

Then came an even stranger instruction: everyone needed to change their surname to Abraham. In India, surnames follow a patriarchal pattern, your father's first name becomes your last name. Changing it was unheard of unless you were rich and fancy. They were working class. Who did they think they were?

But her dad made sure everyone's name legally changed to Abraham, after Abraham who left his land when he was instructed to by God.

Fast forward to the year 2000. The family packed their suitcases and nothing more. Her dad flew to Sydney a week early to find a place to rent. Then Jwanel, her brother Jabish, and their mom followed. That's how their journey began in Australia, in Caringbah in the Sutherland Shire.

"I grew up surrounded by faith," she explains. "Not just Sunday school faith, but seeing God's providence lived out. I really saw how He loved and cared for my family whether we had little or when we had a bit more."

The Weight of Being Different

Growing up in Sydney, Jwanel felt she had a pretty good childhood. She made friends at Caringbah North Public School and then Woolooware High School, some of who are still her best friends today. She loved her life in Australia. But she also loved India, where summers were spent at her grandparents' huge property with aunties and uncles and cousins all staying together.

The tension between the two worlds was constant. "It sounds so angsty," she admits, "but I was like, where do I belong?"

That tension only deepened in high school. She remembers a specifically thinking to herself: "I just wish I was Australian." Not because of bullying, which she didn't experience, but because being different felt harder than it needed to be.

Her identity became a battleground. When you're younger, you don't think about how you look or your personality. You just are. But in high school, all of that comes to the forefront. Jwanel found herself making a decision: she didn't like who she was. She didn't like how she looked. She didn't like how she didn't quite fit into the culture no matter how hard she tried. And she didn't even like her personality.

She was chronically shy, so shy that her teachers asked her parents if she talked at home because they never heard her speak. It was only her family and close friends who saw a different side. She would sweat if someone she didn't know tried to talk to her.

The negative self-dialogue became relentless. "You're so boring. Not interesting." She believed it. That's who she was.

A Moment at KCC

One night, surrounded by thousands of Christian teenagers at KYCK Conference, Jwanel had a thought that stopped her cold: "Even here in God's family, you're a nobody."

She remembers it so clearly. Her faith was real, Jesus was her friend, but there seemed to be no hope for redemption for who she was. God was God, but that didn't change the fundamental problem of her.

The next night though, something shifted. She felt the love of God wash over her like a direct answer. "No, no, no. I see you." It added depth to her faith. But the internal battle was far from over.

When Everything Started to Crumble

After high school, Jwanel went straight to university, because that's what everyone did. That's when things began to worsen.

She developed some health complications. Nothing life-threatening, but they stressed her out and caused her health to fluctuate. The big thing was hair loss. It sounds trivial, but it devastated her. If she didn't like her appearance before, now it was dialled up to the nines.

The depression that followed was deep and dark. It got so bad it started affecting her studies and she failed a few classes.

This was a crisis in her world. Education was everything to her family. Her ancestors two or three generations back had made sacrifices so that even one kid could get educated and change the whole family line. Those stories had been passed down and her parents had come to Australia because of education. Jwanel had always been a hard worker who did well at school. She used to judge people who didn't take education seriously—"just leave then, you don't even know the privilege you have."

But now she wasn't even meeting her own standards.

The self-dialogue became vicious. Her parents, to their credit, never guilted her though. Still, it made her feel worse that she was making things harder on them.

She began thinking: what is my life even going to look like? She'd never had career ambitions or grand plans. She'd thought she'd be married by 25 with three kids. Time was passing, she was failing at what she was doing, she didn't like how she looked or her personality. What was she even here for?

The daily thoughts, were horrific, a real spiritual battle in the mind. And the strangest part was that no one would have known. She was fully invested ministry, four or five ministries, attending two churches services and a Bible study. She was there every week, serving, showing up.

But behind closed doors, she was trapped in her mind.

The Weighted Blanket

One night, Jwanel decided to try something. "Let's try prayer. Let's fully give it a go." Up until then, prayer had just been something you do as a Christian, but it had never really impacted her. She liked reading the Bible—her love for stories and narratives actually came from the Bible—but prayer felt formulaic.

"Let's try actually reading it in light of my life," she thought. "Let's try being honest in prayer and not doing the teaspoon thing, not doing the format. Let me just lay it out because I have nothing to thank you for." That clearly wasn't true, but in her head, that's where Jwanel was. "I'm just going to be angry and vent."

Every night by her bedside. She can't tell exactly how long it lasted, maybe a few months, maybe just one month, but she will always refer to it as the spirit of depression.

One day she prayed, and it was gone.

She doesn't know how else to describe it. It was like she'd been walking around with a weighted blanket on her head every day from the moment she woke up, and God just ripped it off. She remembers thinking: this is what it's like to have a sound mind. The negative dialogue stopped.

By God's grace, she's never felt like that again. Obviously she's had heavy days, sad thoughts, but never that repetitive, relentless assault. And she's always been able to recognise untrue thoughts since then. At that time, it was "you're a failure, you're all these things," and there was no way she could have self-helped her way out of that. But it was taken away.

That was the turning point. "I was saved at that point," she reflects. "I don't know which stone marks me being a Christian, but after that, I had a deep relationship with God, and my faith became unshakable."

"I have so much joy now," she says simply. "God has shown me His love and care and His saving power. He's shown me what it meant that Jesus died for me. Now I read the gospels and I can't believe I used to read them the way I did—just like 'oh yeah, so he went and died, that's really cool.' No. He had all of us in mind. He was thinking about me while he was being spit on, whipped, tortured."

Now you cannot convince her out of her faith. Not with any arguments. Because when you truly know Jesus, not just know about him, but truly know him, it's life-changing. There's no prison you won't be free from, no cage, no power that can take away your joy.

Learning About Singleness and Identity

Fresh from being delivered from depression in her early twenties, Jwanel had to make a decision. She wanted seriously pursue a relationship, because that's what would make her happy, right?

She remembers thinking: you're going to make an idol of this. Just give it to God because He knows what's good for you. "I'm no way saying this is the blueprint that singles have to follow," she's quick to clarify. "But this is how God worked in my life."

What followed were years of learning to preach truth to herself. To run to the real source when she was feeling things instead of just moving into those thoughts and desires first.

Loneliness, for example, is huge for people who are single but she learned is that it isn't tied to relationship status or how many people you have in your life.

"That gives me hope," she explains. "Not in a vindictive 'everyone's lonely' way, but it means I have access to the source to cure loneliness just as much as anyone else. So if that's true, the solution to my loneliness is not to pursue a relationship, it's to pursue God."

Then there's the anxiety of timing. What if I miss the boat? People at work always tell her to put herself out there, make a Hinge profile. Jwanel recognised it wasn't for her. "I'll immediately tie my value to my success on those things. I don't have the strength of character to do that well, so I just stay away."

Someone at work actually asked her, "Do you expect someone to turn up at your doorstep?"

"Maybe he could," she replied. "If God wanted to, he could."

More importantly, she truly believes there's no way she's going to miss what God has planned for her by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. "God's not playing games with you. If He doesn't want something for you right now, it doesn't matter how much you try, it's not going to happen in the right way. And when God does want something to happen for you, nothing will stop it."

Morning Routines and a Family Legacy

These days, Jwanel wakes up at 4:00 am. She wants to wake up before she hears any birds. "I want to get that worm before the birds don't get any worms," she jokes.

She got it from her mum, who's been waking at the crack of dawn since Jwanel was in high school, getting up to read the Bible and pray. Back then, Jwanel thought she was being too much, always saying "thank you Jesus" for tiny things. "Stop," teenage Jwanel would say. But now? "No, she's so wise."

So now Jwanel does the same. "I like slow mornings," Jwanel explains. "I really hate rolling out of bed and having to rush to work. Getting four hours before I have to do anything is great and I don't feel like I just live to work."

Both her parents have been through a lot individually before they were married, with a consistent theme of betrayal. Many come into their lives and leave abruptly and hurtfully. Jwanel has seen her parents struggle but also be a godly example through it all. She's literally seen people who really hurt them previously turn up on their doorstep years later saying "I don't have anywhere to go," and her parents immediately took them in and gave them a place to stay until they got back on their feet.

"This is why I can't doubt God's got their back," Jwanel reflects. "I've seen how they didn't lash out, didn't feel like they needed to say their side of the story to everyone, they were just godly and faithful. And look how God turned that around."

Nine Years of Youth Leadership

Jwanel spent nine years as a youth leader, and it taught her more than she expected. Firstly, the joy of watching a younger generation come to know God is beautiful, and having any part of that is rewarding.

But one of the earliest lessons was learning not to stress about everything. At first, you panic and you want to protect and shield them. She remembers when someone got into a relationship with a non-Christian and it was like an emergency meeting, everyone saying "we've lost them, this is how it's going to go."

"You just have to walk with them," Jwanel learned. "Show them Christ's love instead of determining 'this is how it's going to go and you need to do this.' You're there to speak wisdom and model what a life with Jesus looks like, and then entrust it to God."

She'll admit there were times when ministry became a crutch for her because it felt like the only area where she wasn't failing for a while. Ministry comes with reputation and respect within the church, and you need strong character and humility to carry that. For a period, she wasn't humbling herself before God. She had the attitude of "at least I'm having success in this area, at least I'm living for God." On reflection, that was wrong.

"It's not about you. It's about God and the work you're doing." When she had the right mind, she had proper joy in serving. "There's no joy quite like serving in ministry together with people. It's what God commissions us to do."

Finding Home at Soul Revival

Jwane'l’s brother Jabish and wife Amy were at Soul Revival first, so she already had the good recommendation. The minute she stepped through the doors and attended the first service, she could tell: this is what God means when He wants community for us. Not just a place you attend and then go home. People who care for each other and want to spend time with each other.

"The concept of having the meal together each week, and my love for food and community together, I think that's what it's all about." If they can model what God wants heaven to look like, they're doing pretty well. Enjoying each other, praising God, spending time feasting and laughing.

"Culture and stuff is top down, and I can see that God is at the top and then it's been really well shepherded, this church. That enables this community to flourish the way it does."

What surprised her most? How hard it is to nail down such a good culture where you can just be yourself. In every other social gathering, there's something that unites you, meaning you're all similar people in some way. But at Soul Revival, everyone's so different—such vast ages and personalities—but everyone has so much joy with each other.'

"It sounds basic, but seeing that is really amazing, and it's not common. We really do well at loving people for who they are and pointing everyone to Christ in the way we do community."

Stones All Along the Way

If Jwanel could tell her younger Christian self anything, it would be:

Just go to the Bible faster. Stop trying to take shortcuts or looking for meaning everywhere other than Jesus because you already know who He is. Stop looking for meaning and validation in your appearance or personality or how people view you or in your success. It's never going to fulfill you. Just give it to Jesus.

She'd also say: have courage. She's amazed at some of the younger Christians at Soul Revival who are so outspoken and on fire for their faith. It's not easy, and it's harder to be a Christian these days when you're younger.

"I was just terrified. I was so scared to speak up. I'd be like, just keep it quiet, it's a private faith, just between me and God." But she'd tell her younger self: speak up, have courage, don't be afraid.

Looking back at the stones that made up her life, the family that packed suitcases and flew to Sydney with nothing but faith, the night at KCC when God said "I see you," the weighted blanket being ripped away, the lessons learned through singleness and youth leading, the parents who modelled faithfulness through betrayal and hardship, the community at Soul Revival that loves without pretense, Jwanel sees God's faithfulness woven through every season.

She still doesn't know the exact moment she became a Christian. Maybe she always was. Maybe it was gradual. Maybe it was that night when depression lifted. She'll have to ask Jesus one day.

But she knows this: when you truly know Him, not just know about Him but know Him, there's no prison you won't be free from. No cage. No power that can take away your joy.

Looking for a church in Sutherland Shire or Ryde? Find out when Soul Revival gathers and come hang out with us.