The Widow the Almighty Regarded

In 1882, Pandita Ramabai became a widow at twenty-three — her husband taken by cholera, leaving her alone with an infant daughter in a society that considered widows cursed and expendable. A high-caste Brahmin woman reduced to the lowest rung of Indian life, she had every reason to despair. But during a visit to England the following year, Ramabai encountered the God who, as the psalmist writes, "though exalted, regards the lowly."…