“I don’t believe in chance encounters. I believe that everyone crosses
our path for a reason. If we are wise, we will distill that interaction
to discover how we are meant to grow from it. At the May 2015 ICNA-MAS
Convention, I was assigned to be room-mates with a colleague from ICNA
Relief’s Florida chapter. Let’s call her Jane.
As we turned in for the night, I learned Jane once was a pastoral
worker. 20 years ago, her role at a University in the South involved
interfaith work. Meeting international students led her to learn about
Islam. Two years later she embraced the faith.
Jane’s decision
came with a price. A price that the faint of faith may have recoiled
from. It cost her her marriage. It cost her her children, then about 6
and 4 years old. She lost her job, and her family of origin. She was
asked to withdraw from the university. She underwent court ordered
psychiatric evaluations (only to be found to be among the most grounded
of people). She said, twenty years ago, not only was it the South but
Islam was seen as a cult.
As a mother, to have your children
taken from you, to lose your place in society, to be robbed of all
you’ve ever known. Talk about sticker shock. Given that I don’t hesitate
to ask the big questions, has being Muslim been worth the cost to her, I
wanted to know?
‘Alhamdollilah’, she responded in a heartbeat.
Judaism and Christianity gave her the ten commandments, she said, and
Islam gave her the details as to how to fulfill those commandments. It’s
a process towards growth, she said. ‘For instance, the ten commandments
forbid adultery and Islam shows you all the little things that keep you
from inadvertently falling into it. Because we don’t intentionally set
out to sin. Islam provides the guidance necessary to keeping life
simple,’ she said.
Mary and I talked about her teenage
children from her second marriage to a Muslim man, about embracing her
now adult children from her first marriage, unconditionally. She talked
about her work with FEMA. About finding her true calling as a beacon of
hope amidst Hurricane Katrina, as Director of Disaster Relief Services
with ICNA Relief USA. The two of us chatted till 2:30 a.m. or was it
3:00 a.m.?
I couldn’t help but wonder how, when we are born
into a faith, we often take it so lightly. We are even negligent with
it. Yet to abide by that same faith, other people have made such huge
sacrifices.
As I said, I was meant to meet Jane. Ramadan had
been on the horizon. The questions our conversation had raised shaped my
month: How can I make sure my faith is my North Star in every choice I
make, whether big or small? What should I be doing so I, too, find her
kind of conviction to do right by God? How could I use my calling as a
writer to live my faith more fully? And, most importantly, what could I
learn from her about putting all my trust in my Lord?”
