Stories of rejection, persecution, loss, but also of incredible faith and joy.

They had paid the highest price to follow Jesus.

And yet, they were the most peaceful, joyful people I had ever met.

One woman named Mariam became like an older sister to me.

She had been downed by her family 8 years ago when they discovered her faith.

She had not spoken to them since.

She told me that the grief never fully goes away, that she still cried for her mother sometimes, still missed her siblings.

But she also told me that Jesus had been faithful, that he had given her a new family, that she had never regretted her choice, even in the hardest moments.

Mariam prepared me for what was coming.

She said that eventually my family would find out and I needed to be ready.

She said that hoping to keep both my faith and my family’s approval was an illusion.

I would have to choose.

The only question was whether I would choose on my own terms or wait until the choice was forced upon me.

Her words proved prophetic sooner than I expected.

In the fall of my final year, just months before graduation, my carefully constructed double life began to collapse.

It started with my younger brother.

He had been accepted to a university in Europe and was asking me for advice about studying abroad.

We had been messaging back and forth and our relationship had grown closer over distance.

He felt like the one family member I might be able to talk to honestly.

One night, in a moment of weakness and desperate loneliness, I let my guard down.

He asked me what had been the best part of my time in America.

Without thinking, I told him about the people I had met, the things I had learned, how different my perspective had become.

I said something about finding a different kind of faith, a more personal relationship with God.

I did not say Jesus.

I did not say Christianity, but I said too much.

My brother stopped responding to my messages.

Two days of silence.

Then my father called.

Not a scheduled call.

An urgent call in the middle of my night.

His voice was cold and hard when I answered.

He asked me directly what I had meant in my conversation with my brother.

He asked if I had abandoned Islam.

He asked if I had become a Christian.

I froze.

This was the moment I had dreaded for years.

I could lie.

I could deny everything.

I could say it was all a misunderstanding.

But something in me could not do it anymore.

I was tired of lying.

I was tired of hiding.

And I realized in that moment that I would rather lose my family than deny Jesus.

So I told him the truth.

I told him that I had found faith in Jesus Christ.

I told him that I had read the Bible and believed it was true.

I told him that I had been baptized.

I told him that I could not come back to Iran and live a lie.

I told him that I was sorry for any pain this caused.

But I could not deny what I believed.

The silence on the other end of the phone was worse than yelling would have been.

When my father finally spoke, his voice was shaking with rage and something else.

Grief, maybe betrayal.

He said I had brought the worst possible shame on our family.

He said I had destroyed his reputation, his honor, everything he had worked for his entire life.

He said I was no longer his daughter.

He said I was dead to them.

Then he hung up.

I called back immediately, but my number had been blocked.

I tried messaging my mother, my siblings, blocked everywhere.

In the space of a single phone call, I had lost my entire family.

21 years of relationship gone.

I sat on the floor of my apartment and cried until I had no tears left.

The next days were a blur of grief.

I could not eat, could not sleep, could barely function.

Sarah and Tom and Linda came and stayed with me, making sure I was not alone.

They did not try to fix it or make it better.

They just sat with me in the pain, praying over me, reminding me that I was not abandoned, that I was still loved, that God had not left me, but the worst was yet to come.

A week after that devastating phone call, I received a message from my cousin, one of the few who had not completely cut me off.

She sent me a photo.

It was a death announcement with my name on it.

My father had declared me legally dead.

There had been a funeral, a real funeral with a real grave marker with my name and a date of death.

That was the day of our last phone call.

I stared at that photo for hours, unable to process what I was seeing.

They had buried me, not my body, but my identity, my existence in their lives.

To them, I had died.

Sakane, the Imam’s daughter, was dead.

And in a way, she was.

That girl was gone forever.

But I was still here, still breathing, still alive, just dead to them.

The grief was overwhelming, but mixed with it was something else.

A strange sense of freedom.

The secret was out.

The worst had happened.

I had nothing left to hide.

I did not have to pretend anymore.

I did not have to live in fear of discovery.

The cost had been paid and I was still standing.

Broken but standing.

In the following weeks, supported by my church family, I began the process of filing for asylum in the United States.

I gathered evidence of my conversion, testimonies from Tom and Linda and my pastor, documentation of the threats I would face if I returned to Iran.

The immigration lawyer I worked with was experienced with religious persecution cases.

She told me I had a strong case that I should be approved, but the process would take time, possibly years.

I also made another decision.

I legally changed my name.

Sak, the name my father had given me.

The name that connected me to a life I could no longer live.

That name died with my old self.

I chose a new name, grace, because grace was what had saved me.

Grace was what I did not deserve, but had been given freely.

Grace was the heart of everything I had found in Jesus.

I graduated that spring with my engineering degree.

My family was not there.

Tom and Linda came.

Sarah came.

My church family came.

They cheered for me.

Took photos with me.

Celebrated with me.

They were my family now.

Not by blood, but by choice and by the blood of Jesus.

It was bittersweet, beautiful, and painful all at once.

As I looked toward the future, I had no idea what it would hold.

I had lost everything I had known, everyone I had loved.

But I had gained something more valuable.

I had gained freedom.

I had gained truth.

I had gained Jesus.

And somehow, even in the midst of the deepest grief I had ever known, I had peace.

The peace that Jesus promised, the peace that passes understanding, the peace that the world cannot give and cannot take away.

The photo of my death announcement stayed on my phone for months.

I could not delete it.

I would look at it late at night, still unable to fully comprehend what I was seeing.

There was my name in Farsy script, the name I had carried for 21 years.

There were the dates, my birth, and my declared death just days apart from my actual birthday.

Below that was a verse from the Quran about returning to Allah.

And at the bottom, my father’s name as the announcer of this death.

My cousin had sent more details in the days after that first message.

She was sympathetic, horrified by the family was doing, but too afraid to openly support me.

She told me that my father had called a family meeting the day after our phone call.

He had announced to everyone that I had committed apostasy, that I had become a Christian, that I had brought unbearable shame upon the family name.

In Islamic law and in Iranian culture, I was as good as dead.

So, he decided to make it official.

The funeral had been held at our mosque.

The same mosque where I had grown up, where I had hidden behind wooden partitions during prayers, where I had learned to recite the Quran.

Now it was the site of my burial.

My father had led the prayers himself.

There had been a shroud, empty but wrapped in the traditional way.

My mother had collapsed during the ceremony and had to be carried out.

My sisters had wailed as if I had truly died.

My brothers had stood stonefaced, their anger palpable even through my cousin’s description.

The community had rallied around my family, offering condolences for their loss.

Some knew the truth that I was alive but had converted.

Others genuinely believed I had died in some accident in America.

My father let them believe whatever they wanted.

What mattered was that Sakina, his daughter, was gone, erased, buried.

They had even purchased a plot in the family section of the cemetery and installed a grave marker.

My cousin sent me a photo of that, too.

A simple stone with my name, dates carved into its surface, an empty grave with my name on it.

I existed as a ghost now, mourned by people who had chosen to kill me in every way except physically.

The psychological impact of seeing your own grave is difficult to describe.

There is no reference point for it in normal human experience.

I felt like I was haunting my own life.

I would look in the mirror and see someone who was supposed to be dead.

I would walk down the street and think about how somewhere on the other side of the world, there was a stone that said I no longer existed.

The grief came in waves.

Some days I would be functional, going through the motions of my new life, working at my job, going to church, spending time with friends.

Other days I would be completely undone by the smallest reminder of what I had lost.

A smell that reminded me of my mother’s cooking.

A song in Farsy, the sight of a family walking together in the park.

These things would hit me like physical blows, bringing me to my knees with the weight of what I had given up.

I grieved my mother most of all.

She had not chosen this.

She was a victim of my father’s rigid religious system, just as much as I had been.

I thought about all the times she had showed me small kindnesses, secret moments of tenderness when my father was not watching.

Had she known even then that I was struggling? Had she suspected that one day I might leave, I would never know.

She could not contact me even if she wanted to.

My father controlled everything, including her.

I also grieved my siblings.

My older sisters who were now trapped in marriages they had not chosen.

Raising children in the same system that had suffocated us.

My brothers who had been taught that honor mattered more than love.

That religious duty mattered more than family bonds.

My younger brother who I had been growing close to whose innocent question had triggered this entire catastrophe.

Did he blame himself? Did he understand that it was not his fault? And I grieved my father which surprised me.

Despite everything, despite the harshness and the control and the ultimate rejection, he was still my father.

He had provided for me, educated me, sent me to university.

In his own limited way, within his understanding of the world, he had wanted good things for me.

He just could not accept that my idea of good had diverged so completely from his.

He was a prisoner of his own beliefs.

And that made me sad for him even as I was devastated by what he had done.

The hardest part was knowing they were still alive, still going about their daily lives.

But I was dead to them.

If I had actually died, they would have grieved and eventually healed.

But this death was different.

They had chosen it.

They had acted it out.

They had made it real through ritual and declaration.

And they had to maintain it.

Every day they woke up and chose to keep me dead.

I learned through my cousin that photos of me had been removed from the walls of our home.

Pictures of family gatherings had been altered.

My face crossed out or cut away.

My belongings had been given away or burned.

My room had been emptied and repurposed.

It was as if I had never existed.

They were erasing every trace of me from their lives.

But the eraser was not complete.

My cousin told me that my mother kept one photo of me hidden in her Quran.

A picture of me as a little girl, maybe 7 years old, smiling at the camera with my hair in braids.

My mother would take it out sometimes when she was alone and weep over it.

This detail broke me.

My mother was grieving me as if I had died, except worse because she knew I had not.

She knew I was alive somewhere, living a life she could not be part of.

I wanted to reach out to her.

I drafted letters I never sent.

I recorded voice messages I never delivered.

What could I say? I was sorry for hurting her, but I was not sorry for following Jesus.

I wish things could be different, but I would not take back my decision.

How could I offer comfort when my very existence as a Christian was the source of her pain? The Christian community around me tried to help.

Tom and Linda became even more like parents to me.

Linda would call me just to check in, would invite me over for meals, would sit with me when the grief became too much.

Tom would take me on walks, would listen to me process my feelings, would pray with me when I had no words of my own.

They could not replace my family, but they showed me what family could look like when it was based on choice and love rather than obligation.

Sarah and my other friends from church were also constant sources of support.

They organized the meal train, making sure I had food when I could not bring myself to cook.

They texted me daily encouragement.

They sat with me in silence when that was what I needed.

They reminded me that I was not alone even when loneliness threatened to swallow me whole.

The Persian Christian community became especially important during this time.

Miam and Riza and others who had walked the same path understood in ways that my American friends could not.

They had paid the same price.

They carried the same scars.

When I met with them, I did not have to explain my grief.

They knew they had lived it.

There was one gathering I will never forget.

We met in someone’s living room, maybe 20 of us, all Iranian believers who had left Islam for Christ.

We sang worship songs in Farsy.

Our mother tongue transformed into praise for Jesus.

Then people began sharing their stories.

One by one they talked about what they had lost.

Families, countries, identities.

Some had been disowned.

Some had fled persecution.

One man had been imprisoned and tortured in Iran before escaping.

One woman’s family had hired someone to kill her, and she had barely survived.

As I listened to these stories, I realized something profound.

We were all dead people.

We had all been killed in one way or another by our families, our communities, our former faith.

But we were also all resurrected people.

We had died to our old lives and been raised to new life in Christ.

The death was real, but so was the resurrection.

That night, one of the older men in the group read from Romans 6.

He read about how we had been buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life.

He said that our families thought they were killing us by declaring us dead, but they did not understand that we had already died.

We had died to sin, to the law, to the old covenant, and we had been raised with Christ.

Their pronouncement of death had no power because we were already dead to everything except Jesus.

This perspective shift helped me immensely.

I was not just a victim of my family’s rejection.

I was a participant in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

My suffering had meaning.

It was connecting me to Christ in his sufferings.

It was part of the cost of disciplehip that Jesus himself had warned about.

He had said that following him might cost us our families.

He had said that we might have to take up our cross.

He had never promised it would be easy, but he had promised it would be worth it.

Still, knowing something intellectually and feeling it in your heart are two different things.

There were dark days.

Days when I questioned everything.

Days when the price seemed too high.

Days when I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake.

I would think about how easy it would be to recant, to call my father, to say it had all been a phase, to go back and live the life they wanted for me.

But then I would remember Jesus.

I would remember reading the sermon on the mount for the first time.

I would remember the peace that had flooded me the night I gave my life to him.

I would remember how he had set me free from fear and obligation and the crushing weight of trying to earn salvation.

And I would know even in my darkest moments that I could not go back.

Not because I was stubborn, but because you cannot unknow truth.

You cannot unlove someone you have come to love.

You cannot return to slavery once you have tasted freedom.

My asylum application was slowly moving through the system.

The interviews were difficult, requiring me to relive my story over and over to prove that my fear of persecution was real.

I had to show evidence of my conversion.

Testimonies from church leaders, documentation of what happened with my family.

The death announcement and grave marker photos actually helped my case.

As horrifying as that was, they proved that my family had completely rejected me and that returning to Iran would be dangerous.

The waiting was agonizing.

Asylum cases could take years to process.

During that time, I was in legal limbo.

I could not travel.

I could not visit other countries.

I was stuck in America, cut off from my homeland, waiting for a government to decide if my story was believable enough, if my fear was valid enough, if my conversion was real enough.

One year after the funeral, on the anniversary of my declared death, I did something that felt important.

I went to a cemetery near my apartment with Tom and Linda and Sarah and a few other close friends.

We held a service there, but it was not a funeral.

It was a resurrection celebration.

We read from the Bible about Jesus rising from the dead.

We sang songs about new life.

We prayed thanksgivings for what God had brought me through.

And then I spoke a declaration.

I said that one year ago, my family had declared me dead and buried an empty grave.

But I was not dead.

I was more alive than I had ever been.

The old Sakina was dead.

Yes, the girl who lived in fear and bondage.

That girl was gone.

But grace had risen in her place.

And Grace was a daughter of the living God, bought by the blood of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, free and forgiven and forever loved.

My friends prayed over me, speaking life and blessing and hope.

We cried together, but they were not tears of grief alone.

They were tears of healing, of victory, of faith that God was not done with my story yet.

As we left that cemetery, I felt something shift inside me.

The grief did not disappear.

It would never fully disappear, but it no longer had the power to define me.

I was learning to live in the tension of loss and gain.

I had lost my earthly family, but I had gained an eternal family.

I had lost my birthname, but I had gained a new identity in Christ.

I had lost my country, but I had gained citizenship in the kingdom of God.

I had lost everything that once defined me, but I had found the one thing that mattered most.

The resurrection life is not a life without pain.

Jesus himself told us we would have trouble in this world.

But it is a life with purpose.

It is a life with hope.

It is a life where even our deepest losses can be redeemed and used for God’s glory.

I was beginning to understand that my story, as painful as it was, might be able to help others.

If I had been willing to pay this price for Jesus, maybe my testimony could encourage others who were wrestling with the same impossible choice.

I started writing my story down, not for publication, just for myself to process everything I had been through.

But as I wrote, I began to see how God had been present in every step.

How he had led me to that New Testament in the library.

how he had brought Sarah into my life at exactly the right time.

How he had provided Tom and Linda and Miriam and a whole community to catch me when I fell.

How he had given me the strength to tell the truth even when lying would have been easier.

How he had sustained me through the grief.

How he was healing me even when I thought I was too broken to be fixed.

None of this made the pain go away.

My mother was still grieving on the other side of the world.

My grave marker was still standing in an Iranian cemetery.

My name was still crossed out in family photos.

These realities hurt as much as they ever did.

But they no longer had the power to crush me because I knew something that my family did not know.

Something that made all the difference.

I knew that death was not the end.

I knew that resurrection was real.

I knew that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead was at work in me.

And I knew that one day, maybe not in this life, but certainly in the next, every tear would be wiped away, every wound would be healed, every separation would be overcome.

One day, I would see Jesus face to face.

And on that day, everything I had lost would pale in comparison to everything I had gained.

Until then, I would keep walking, keep believing, keep hoping, keep loving Jesus no matter what it cost because he had loved me first.

Loved me enough to die for me.

loved me enough to pursue me across continents and cultures and religions until I finally understood that I was his and he was mine.

They had buried me, but I had risen.

And that made all the difference.

3 years have passed since my family held that funeral.

3 years since I was declared dead.

3 years of learning what it means to live as someone who has died and been raised again.

I am sitting in my apartment as I tell you this story.

The same apartment where I have lived through the hardest season of my life.

The afternoon light streams through the window and I can hear children playing outside.

There is a cross on my wall and a Bible on my table.

And there is peace in my heart.

The peace did not come all at once.

It came slowly, gradually like dawn breaking after a long night.

There were many more tears, many more moments of grief, many more days when the loss felt too heavy to bear.

But somehow through it all, Jesus carried me.

He kept his promise that he would never leave me or forsake me.

Even when I could not feel his presence, he was there.

Even when I was too broken to pray, his spirit was interceding for me.

Even when I doubted everything, his love remained steady and sure.

My asylum application was finally approved just over a year ago.

The day I received the letter granting me refugee status in the United States, I cried for hours.

It meant I was safe.

It meant I could not be forced to return to Iran.

It meant I could begin to build a real life here, not just exist in legal limbo.

It was a new beginning, official and legal and permanent.

I have a good job now, working as an engineer for a tech company.

My degree is being put to use.

I am financially independent, supporting myself, building a career.

My co-workers do not know my full story.

They know I am from Iran, that I cannot go back.

But they do not know the details of what happened with my family.

Some things are too personal, too painful to share with people who would not understand.

But I have found my community, my people, my family.

The church that welcomed me when I was still hiding my faith has become my home.

Tom and Linda continue to be like parents to me.

They celebrated with me when I got my asylum approval.

They helped me move into a better apartment.

They include me in all their family gatherings.

Their children call me their sister.

Their grandchildren know me as Auntie Grace.

I am woven into the fabric of their lives and they into mine.

Sarah is still one of my closest friends.

She is engaged now to a wonderful man who also loves Jesus.

She has asked me to be in her wedding.

When she told me this, I cried because I realized that I would never be in my own sisters weddings, never celebrate their children’s births, never share in the normal rhythms of family life with them.

But I would have this.

I would have Sarah’s friendship, her trust, her joy.

It was not the same, but it was good.

It was real.

The Persian Christian community continues to be a vital part of my life.

We meet regularly, sometimes in someone’s home, sometimes at a church that has welcomed us.

We worship in Farsy, pray in Farsy, share our lives in our mother tongue.

This community understands my heart in ways that others cannot.

They know what it means to lose everything for Jesus.

They know the specific pain of being rejected by an Iranian family.

They know how to celebrate no ruse as Christians.

How to maintain our cultural identity while following Christ.

With them, I can be fully Persian and fully Christian.

I do not have to choose between the two.

Mariam has become like a spiritual mother to me.

She has walked this road longer than I have and her wisdom has been invaluable.

When I struggle with guilt about my family, she reminds me that I am not responsible for their choices, only my own.

When I wonder if I am doing enough, if I am living worthy of the price that was paid, she reminds me that grace is not earned but received.

When I feel alone, she reminds me that I am part of a global family of believers that spans centuries and continents.

I have also started serving in ministry.

It began small, just sharing my story with a few people here and there, but word spread.

Other churches started inviting me to speak.

Organizations that work with Muslim background believers asked me to share my testimony.

At first, I was terrified.

I am not a public speaker.

I am just an ordinary person who met Jesus and had her life turned upside down.

But I realized that my story is not really about me.

It is about what Jesus does.

It is about his power to transform lives, to set captives free, to bring light into darkness.

Now I speak regularly at churches and conferences.

I tell my story to help others understand what converts from Islam go through.

I speak to help western Christians realize that there are brothers and sisters around the world paying enormous prices for their faith.

I speak to encourage Muslims who are questioning, who are curious about Jesus, who are wrestling with doubts.

I want them to know they are not alone.

I want them to know that Jesus is worth it.

I want them to know that there is a community ready to embrace them if they choose to follow him.

Every time I speak, I think about my father.

The irony is not lost on me that the imam’s daughter is now preaching about Jesus.

The same gift for speaking that might have made him proud if I had used it for Islam, I am now using for the gospel.

Sometimes I wonder if he knows if word has reached him somehow that his dead daughter is alive and telling people about Christ.

I do not know if that would make him angrier or sadder.

Perhaps both.

Through my ministry, I have met countless other believers from Muslim backgrounds.

Each story is unique, but the themes are similar.

the slow awakening of doubt, the fear of questioning, the secret reading of the Bible, the moment of decision, the devastating rejection, the grief and loss, but also the joy, the freedom, the peace, the absolute certainty that Jesus was worth it all.

One young woman I met recently reminded me so much of myself.

She was from Saudi Arabia, studying in America, secretly reading the Bible, terrified of what would happen if her family found out.

I sat with her for hours, listening to her questions, sharing my story, praying with her.

When she finally decided to follow Jesus when I had the privilege of baptizing her, I wept.

I wept for joy that another captive had been set free.

I wept with grief knowing what she would likely face.

I wept with gratitude that God would use my story to help someone else find him.

This is what resurrection life looks like.

I think it is not the absence of pain.

It is not pretending that everything is fine when it is not.

It is carrying your scars but not being defined by them.

It is finding purpose in your suffering.

It is allowing God to redeem what was meant to destroy you and use it to bring life to others.

I still grieve my family.

That has not changed.

There are still moments when the loss hits me fresh and hard.

Birthdays are difficult.

The Persian New Year, no ruse, is bittersweet.

I celebrate it with my Persian Christian friends, but I ache for my mother’s cooking, my sister’s laughter, the familiar rhythms of home.

I see other families together and feel the absence of my own like a physical wound.

The grief lives in me, a constant companion.

I have learned to carry it, but it is still there.

I stay updated on their lives through my cousin, the only family member who has maintained any contact with me.

She does this secretly at great risk to herself.

Through her, I learn small details.

My mother’s health is declining.

My older sister had another baby.

My younger brother got married.

These updates bring both comfort and pain.

Comfort because I still know something about their lives.

Pain because I am not part of them.

My cousin tells me that my mother still keeps that photo of me hidden in her Quran.

That she still cries when she looks at it.

That she has aged dramatically in these three years.

The grief wearing her down.

This knowledge is almost unbearable.

My mother is suffering because of my choice, because of my faith.

How do I hold that? How do I live with knowing that my freedom has cost her so much? I have had to learn to forgive myself, to accept that I cannot control how others respond to my choices.

I did not choose to hurt my family.

I chose to follow Jesus.

Their pain is real, but it comes from their inability to accept my decision, not from the decision itself.

This is a subtle but important distinction.

I am responsible for my choices, but I am not responsible for their response to my choices.

I pray for my family every single day, every morning, often throughout the day, always at night before I sleep.

I pray that God would open their eyes to see Jesus.

I pray that somehow someway they would come to understand that what I found was not rebellion but truth.

I pray especially for my mother and my younger brother.

I pray that seeds of doubt might be planted in their hearts that they might begin to question the way I did.

That they might find their way to the same Jesus who saved me.

I do not know if I will ever see them again in this life.

The rational part of me says probably not.

My father is not a man who changes his mind.

He has declared me dead.

And in his worldview that pronouncement is final and absolute.

Even if one of them wanted to reach out to me, the social pressure and religious obligation would make it nearly impossible.

I am apostate, outcast, unclean.

contact with me would contaminate them.

But I have learned not to limit God.

I have seen him do impossible things.

I have watched him transform my own heart from fearful Muslim girl to free Christian woman.

I have seen him provide for me in ways I never could have imagined.

I have experienced his faithfulness through the darkest valley.

So I hold on to hope.

small and fragile as it sometimes feels that God is not done with my family story that somehow in his timing he might reach them too.

In the meantime I live really live not just survive.

I am building a life that has meaning and purpose.

I am using my gifts and abilities.

I am loving and being loved.

I am part of a community.

I am making a difference in ways big and small.

This life looks nothing like what I imagined when I was growing up in Iran.

It has cost me more than I could have dreamed, but it is also richer and fuller than anything I could have planned for myself.

There is a verse in the Bible that has become like an anchor for me.

It is from the book of Philippians where Paul writes about knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.

He says that he considers everything a loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus.

That whatever was gained to him he counts as loss for the sake of Christ.

That he considers everything rubbish compared to gaining Christ and being found in him.

When I first read these verses years ago, they were just words on a page.

Now they are my testimony.

I have lost everything that once defined me.

My family, my name, my country, my original identity, everything.

And I can say with Paul that it was worth it.

Not because the loss did not matter, not because it did not hurt, but because what I gained in Christ is infinitely more valuable than what I lost.

I think about the woman in the Bible who had been bleeding for 12 years.

She spent everything she had on doctors, but only got worse.

When she heard about Jesus, she pushed through the crowd and touched his garment, believing that even that small contact would heal her.

and it did.

Jesus felt power go out from him, turned and asked who touched him.

When the woman came forward trembling, expecting rebuke, Jesus called her daughter.

He told her that her faith had healed her to go in peace.

I am like that woman.

I spent years bleeding, spent years suffering under a religious system that took everything and gave nothing back.

I was desperate for healing, for freedom, for life.

And when I finally reached out to Jesus, when I dared to believe that he could save me, he did.

He did not rebuke me for being an outsider, for coming from Islam, for having doubts and questions.

He called me daughter.

He healed me.

He gave me peace.

If I could speak to that scared 17-year-old girl who was getting on a plane to America, I would tell her so many things.

I would tell her that the questions she is afraid to ask are valid.

I would tell her that the doubts she is suppressing are the beginning of wisdom.

I would tell her that the journey ahead will be harder than anything she can imagine, but that she will survive it.

I would tell her that losing everything will paradoxically teach her what truly matters.

I would tell her that Jesus is real, that he sees her, that he is already pursuing her across continents and cultures and religions.

I would tell her to be brave.

But I would also tell her that it is okay to grieve, that choosing Jesus does not mean pretending the cost does not matter.

that it is possible to be absolutely certain of your faith while simultaneously devastated by what it has cost.

That you can have joy and sorrow living together in your heart.

That resurrection life still bears the marks of the crucifixion.

To others like me, to those who are watching this and wrestling with similar questions and fears, I want to say this.

I see you.

I know the battle raging in your heart and mind.

I know the fear that keeps you up at night.

I know the impossible position you find yourself in.

Caught between the faith you were born into and the truth you are discovering.

I know the guilt and the shame and the terror of what might happen if anyone finds out.

I cannot tell you that following Jesus will be easy.

I cannot promise that you will not lose things that matter deeply to you.

I cannot guarantee that your family will eventually understand and accept your choice.

The truth is that the cost of disciplehip is real and high, especially for those of us coming from Islam.

Jesus himself never sugarcoated this.

He said that following him might cost us our families, our reputations, our security, even our lives.

But I can tell you that Jesus is worth it.

I can testify that the peace he gives is real.

I can promise you that you will never walk alone because he has promised to never leave you or forsake you.

I can assure you that there is a global community of believers ready to embrace you as family.

I can guarantee that nothing you are going through takes God by surprise.

That he sees you, that he loves you, that he is calling you to himself.

The question is not whether the cost is high.

It is.

The question is whether Jesus is worth the cost.

And I am here to tell you that he is.

He absolutely is.

Not because I am some super spiritual person with extraordinary faith.

I am not.

I am just an ordinary woman who encountered an extraordinary savior.

I am just someone who was lost and got found.

I am just a dead person who got raised to life.

To my brothers and sisters in the west, to those who have always had the freedom to worship openly without persecution, I want to say this.

Please do not take your freedom for granted.

Please remember that there are millions of believers around the world who cannot openly worship, who risk everything to follow Jesus, who pay prices you will never have to pay.

Pray for them, support them, learn from them.

Let their faith challenge and inspire your own.

Also, please open your hearts to converts from Islam.

We need you.

We need your churches to be safe places where we can ask questions, process our grief, learn what it means to follow Jesus without fear.

We need spiritual mothers and fathers like Tom and Linda who will welcome us into their families.

We need friends like Sarah who will patiently walk with us through the confusion and fear.

We need communities that will celebrate with us in our joy and weep with us in our sorrow.

Please do not be afraid of us.

Yes, we come from a different background.

Yes, we ask different questions than you might ask.

Yes, our faith journeys look different from yours, but we are your brothers and sisters.

We have been bought by the same blood, filled with the same spirit, adopted into the same family.

The body of Christ is beautifully diverse, made up of people from every nation and tribe and language.

That includes us.

And please, please continue to send missionaries and share the gospel in Muslim majority countries.

I know it is dangerous.

I know it is costly.

I know that many people question whether it is worth it.

But I am living proof that it is worth it.

That Bible I found in a university library was placed there by someone.

The Christians who befriended me and shared their faith were sent by God.

The testimonies I heard from other converts gave me hope.

Every single person who had a part in my journey to Jesus was important.

Your obedience matters.

Your witness matters.

Lives hang in the balance.

My story is not unique.

There are thousands, maybe millions of others like me.

Former Muslims who have found Jesus.

Some have paid an even higher price than I have.

Some have lost their lives, not just their families.

Some are in prison right now for their faith.

Some are in hiding, living in constant fear.

Some are still keeping their faith secret, desperate for freedom, but trapped by circumstance.

They need our prayers.

They need our support.

They need to know they are not forgotten.

As I think about the future, I hold it with open hands.

I do not know what will come.

I hope to get married one day, to have a family of my own, to experience the love and belonging that I lost.

I hope to continue using my story to point others to Jesus.

I hope to keep growing in my faith to know him more deeply, to become more like him.

I hope that maybe, just maybe, God will do a miracle and soften my earthly family’s hearts toward him.

But even if none of those hopes come to pass, I will still have everything that matters.

I will still have Jesus.

I will still have eternal life.

I will still have forgiveness and freedom and purpose.

I will still be a daughter of the King of Kings, an heir to an eternal kingdom, a carrier of the most important message in human history.

The empty grave in Iran is a symbol of death.

Yes, but it is also in a strange way a symbol of resurrection because the grave could not hold Jesus and it cannot hold me either.

Physical death was defeated at the cross and the empty tomb.

Spiritual death was defeated the moment I said yes to Jesus.

And one day when this life is over, I will step fully into the resurrection life that I have only tasted here.

[snorts] On that day, I will see Jesus face to face.

I will hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.

” I will be reunited with all the saints who have gone before, including those who paid the ultimate price for their faith.

I will be home in a way I have never been home, even in the house where I grew up.

And every tear will be wiped away.

Every wound will be healed.

Every loss will be restored 100fold.

Until that day, I keep walking, one foot in front of the other.

Some days with confidence and joy, some days with grief and struggle, but always with Jesus.

Always held by his grace.

Always carried by his love.

Always moving forward into the future he has for me.

My name is Grace.

I used to be called Sakin, daughter of Imam Muhammad Hassan.

My family declared me dead and buried an empty grave with my name on it.

But I am not dead.

I am more alive than I have ever been because I have been crucified with Christ.

And it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

They tried to kill me by erasing me from their lives.

But they did not understand that I had already died.

I died to sin.

I died to the law.

I died to religion and rules and endless striving to earn God’s favor.

And I was raised with Christ to walk in newness of life.

Their declaration of death had no power because I was already dead to everything except Jesus.

So yes, I am dead.

Dead to my old life, my old identity, my old way of living.

But I am also alive.

Alive in Christ, alive to righteousness, alive to love and freedom and grace, alive with a life that can never be taken away, a life that will continue long after this body returns to dust.

A life that is eternal and unshakable and glorious.

This is my testimony.

This is my story.

Not a story of what I have done, but of what Jesus has done in me and for me and through me.

A story of death and resurrection.

A story of loss and gain.

A story of suffering and glory.

A story that is still being written, still unfolding, still revealing the faithfulness of a God who pursues his children across every barrier until they are safely home.

If you are Muslim and you are hearing this, please know that Jesus loves you.

He sees you.

He knows everything about you and he loves you still.

He is not far from you.

He is as close as a whispered prayer.

He is calling you to himself, offering you freedom and life and peace.

The cost of following him might be high, but he is worth it.

I promise you, he is worth it.

If you are a Christian who has always had religious freedom, please remember us who have paid a price.

Pray for us, support us, learn from us.

Let our stories deepen your gratitude for your freedom and strengthen your resolve to live worthy of the gospel.

And please, please keep sharing Jesus with those who have never heard, no matter how difficult or dangerous it might be.

And if you are like me, if you have lost everything to follow Jesus, if you have been rejected and disowned and declared dead by those who once loved you, please hear this.

You are not alone.

You are not forgotten.

You are not a mistake.

Your faith is real.

Your choice was right.

Your suffering has meaning.

And Jesus is with you in every moment, through every tear, in every loss.

He will never leave you.

He will never forsake you.

He will carry you through.

The sun is setting now as I finish sharing my story.

The apartment is growing dark, but I do not feel afraid of the darkness anymore.

Because I know that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

I know that Jesus is the light of the world and whoever follows him will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

I am following that light one day at a time, one step at a time, one breath at a time.

From death to life, from bondage to freedom, from fear to faith, from the Imam’s daughter to a G.

This is my story.

This is my song.

This is my testimony.

Not to bring glory to myself, but to glorify the one who saved me, Jesus Christ, the son of God, the Savior of the world, the Lord of my life.

He has turned my mourning into dancing.

He has clothed me with joy instead of ashes.

He has given me a crown of beauty instead of despair.

He has done immeasurably more than I could have asked or imagined.

And I will spend the rest of my life and all of eternity praising him for it.

They buried me alive, but Jesus raised me from the dead, and that makes all the difference.

Amen.

 

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