The Long Journey Home.
Today I'm going to share with you my experience and journey to Islam. Although its nothing magical,miraculous or breathtaking it is still my story and I am glad i found my way home. I dont want to bore you with too much information, but I will start my story with my childhood years.
I grew up in a small town in Canada, the population was very small with about 3,000 people. My parents were not very religous, but they did believe in God. My grandmother would always come every sunday morning to pick my sister and I up for Sunday school in our local Baptist church.Sometimes we went with her but other times, we didnt answer our front door, pretending we were still fast asleep.Although we went with her for many years it was something we didn't enjoy doing.Until eventually we were old enough to let her know we were no longer interested in going anymore. Our life went on normally without any sunday school. Fastforward to highschool and my story continues.
In highschool,grade 9, I was still aware that God existed but never really gave it a priority or thought much about it. I was too busy being young and having fun I guess.One weekend in particular, While I was at my best friends house, her younger cousin was there and we became great friends after that. Her cousin which I will name 'Jane' was a bit younger than me but she had a love for God and she introduced me to Christianity once again. Her family owned a Christian summer camp and invited me to go for a month in the summer. I thought it would be a great idea as I didnt have much going on anyways, I wasnt one for partying so I wasnt missing anything anyways.
During our evening Bible sessions, I learned alot that I never knew as a child or just didnt pay attention to. I learned about the sacrifice of Jesus, I learned that Jesus was actually thought of as God. I learned how if we don't believe in his sacrifice we would be destined for hell. All these things scared me so much, week after week I would leave those meetings feeling so scared. One of the last weeks I was there, I finally realized I have to accept this message or I will be doomed.I asked 'Jane" to lead me through the prayer to accept Jesus into my life, and so my new chapter began.
For the next few years of my life I tried to live according to the Bible, tried to forsake the evil and live the good. I found a Church I could call home where I felt welcome, but some of their practices made me feel uneasy. To me it was a church that thrived on 'experiences'. People would worship God and scream,shout,dance,vibrate,fall back on the ground and just lay there.Eventually I couldnt handle all the 'chaotic worship' and wanted something peaceful.I would always wonder what is so different between them and me? Do I not believe enough to have these experiences? Or do they not happen because I don't want them to? I always had times
throughout my Christian life where I had doubts and thought to myself,"Do I really believe this?". I would end of feeling so guilty of these thoughts and just shook them off. I thought it had to be true as there is nothing else out there.
After graduation, I began working and had little time to go to church any more as my shift always fell on Sundays. I still believed but my christian life slowly began to fade away and took a spot on the backburner. I met my second boyfriend at my job, he was nice but had his problems, he would smoke weed and party alot! I never had time for any of those things in my life, they just didn't intrigue me. The fact is that he dragged me even further away from God until I never thought about it, ever. We dated for about two years until it just wasnt working anymore and we had to go seperate ways, feeling very lonely I began my search for my next 'love of my life'. I had met some friends in the city, which was about 30 mins away. They invited me out to a bar, even though I didn't feel up to it, I went out of the feeling of being lonely. On this night I met my husband who has guided me to the right path, but at this time he was not on the right path either. He was a born muslim but because he was in university at the time, he got influenced by some negative people and was doing some things he should not have been doing.(Alhamdulilah, he doesnt do these now)So anyways, we met that night and continued to see eachother after that. I never really cared that he was muslim and we didnt ever touch on the topic. He had to be relocated for a job and invited me to move with him, how could I refuse we were in love. So we started our new life together. The more time we spent together the more we began to get on religous topics, this caused me to begin reading the Bible again, especially if I wanted to win him to Christianity.
I began telling him what I believe and why, but he was never convinced, and would always say "Thank Allah I was born a muslim". I always thought
So this ends the story of my journey to Islam, but its not the end of the journey, to me it's just the beginning. There is so much to learn and implicate into my life. I have found my way home, but the journey still continues until my last breath. May Allah guide us all. Ameen.
Recent Comments