We sat at the juice bar as anticipation filled my stomach. Here I was, sitting in a closed country in Northwest Africa across the table from a Muslim woman born and raised in this country. She had never known anything different than all she had been told and all she had seen.
Since we were all younger women surrounding the table, naturally we talked for a while about boys, social norms, jobs, passions and interests. Quickly we built up relational currency and all of our differences began to fade away. We laughed, spoke honestly and made an effort to understand each other. Humanity can be a very beautiful thing.
Me with my naturally inquisitive personality, I wasted no time asking all the questions I could to understand the lens through which she views God and the world. This was my opportunity to understand and connect with a woman who knows and believes and was raised as a Muslim. She knows the culture, expectations and some of the scriptures. I was fascinated by what she spoke of and who her God was.
It did not take long to determine just how she viewed her God, her faith and her life. Religion was all about rules and doing good. People were there to live life on earth for a purpose of doing good and earning salvation. My new friend spoke on and on and on about the high bar of expectation that she had to meet, and even more about just how much she fell short.
If there was one word that she spoke of more than any of the other, it was punishment. Punishment, punishment, punishment. “At the end of my life, I will be punished for all I did wrong.” She will be punished, nations will be punished, man will be punished. All will be punished for all they did wrong. She made a small point to say that she will get to go to heaven, right after she receives her punishment for every way she fell short of all the rules outlined in her scriptures and enforced by society.
“That sounds like a lot of rules,” I whispered from across the table. “It is,” she said to me, as a hopelessness filled her eyes. That’s when I saw what had weighed down so much of her soul and shown through her eyes. Brokenness. The shame of never being quite enough for your culture and your God. The pain of separation from a God who only loved her when she was good enough, which was nearly unachievable. The words that were spoken over her and robbed her of any joy; not enough, unloved, not worthy.
A thought crossed my mind. She didn’t know who she was. Immediately I was taken back a few years in my life. I knew who I saw when I looked into her eyes. I saw myself. There was a time in my life when I sat across a table from someone and I conveyed a similar message, “I am hurting and broken and not good enough. And there is a God who is waiting to punish me for all the ways that I am not enough.” We have all felt the shame of not being enough, not doing enough and not having enough. I had been where she was now.
My heart ached and my stomach turned as a realization hit me. Someone had to tell her. Someone had to tell her that there is a God who has a love so unconditional that it isn’t contingent on anything she does. A God who knew that she couldn’t do enough or be good enough that He became flesh and stood in her place. A God who took her punishment and wants to give her the greatest gift she could ever receive, Himself. A God who she didn’t have to search for or work towards because He already pursued her. Someone had to tell her that she was worth pursuing. That she is created in the image of God, with passions, giftings and purpose.
So that’s what I did. I sat across the table and told her about my Jesus. About her Jesus. I told her about the person of Jesus; his life, his love, his grace, his death and his resurrection. It’s illegal to evangelize Muslims in this country, so I didn’t. But I didn’t have to. The story and person of Jesus is so compelling that I all I had to do was tell her while I watched her eyes fill with confusion and curiosity. I witnessed the Kingdom of God touch earth in that moment and her eyes changed as a result of it. A seed of light was planted in a very dark country, and she finally had to confront the question that was raised into her mind, “Could it possibly be true?”
