But over the next few weeks, I kept finding that card.

It was in my jacket pocket when I was looking for my Oyster card.

It fell out of my bag when I was looking for a pen.

It was there constantly there like it was following me.

And that emptiness inside me kept growing.

One Thursday evening, I had nothing to do.

My housemates were all busy.

I had finished my coursework.

I was sitting in my room feeling that hollow feeling again.

And I thought about that card.

Maybe I would just go once just to see, just to have something to do.

I told myself it didn’t mean anything.

I was just curious.

I wasn’t converting to Christianity or anything crazy like that.

I was just a lonely girl looking for community.

So, I took the tube to the address on the card.

It was a small church in West London.

Nothing fancy, just a regular building with a cross on top.

I stood outside for probably 10 minutes uh debating whether to go in.

I felt stupid.

I felt like I was betraying something, though I wasn’t sure what, but I was tired of being alone.

So, I walked in.

The women’s group was meeting in a small room in the church basement.

There were maybe 12 women there, all different ages, different backgrounds.

Some were British, some were from other countries.

One was wearing a hijab, which surprised me.

The woman from the boutique, her name was Margaret, saw me come in and her face lit up.

She came over and welcomed me, introduced me to the others, got me tea and biscuits.

Everyone was kind.

No one asked me too many questions.

They were just studying the Bible together, reading some passage and discussing what it meant.

I sat in the back and listened.

They were reading about a woman in the Bible named Mary Magdalene or I had heard of her before.

In Islam, we were taught that Christians worship Mary and that it’s wrong to worship anyone but God.

But that’s not what they were talking about.

They were talking about how Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’s followers.

How she had been possessed by demons and Jesus had freed her.

How she stayed with Jesus even when the male disciples ran away.

How she was the first person to see Jesus after he rose from the dead.

One of the women said, “Jesus trusted women to be witnesses.

In a time when women’s testimony wasn’t valued, he appeared to a woman first and told her to go tell the others.

He honored women.

” Something stirred in me when she said that.

I thought about how in Islam a woman’s testimony is worth half of a man’s testimony.

How women can’t be leaders in prayer.

Like how we are told, we’re deficient in intelligence and religion.

But here was a story about Jesus choosing a woman to be the first witness of the most important event in Christianity.

Trusting her, honoring her.

I didn’t believe it.

Not yet.

But I wanted to hear more.

When the meeting ended, Margaret asked if I wanted to come back next week.

I said maybe trying to sound non-committal.

But I knew I would come back because for the first time since I left my family, I had felt something other than emptiness.

I had felt possibility.

I kept going back to that women’s group.

Every Thursday evening, I would take the tube to West London and sit in that church basement with those women, drinking tea and listening to them talk about Jesus.

I told myself I was just going for the community, for the friendship, for something to do on Thursday nights.

Uh, I didn’t tell anyone I was going.

Not my housemates, not Aisha, not anyone.

It felt like a secret, almost like I was doing something wrong.

Or maybe I was just embarrassed.

What would people think if they knew I was going to church? But the truth was, I kept going because something in those meetings spoke to the emptiness inside me.

These women had something I didn’t have.

Peace, maybe, or a purpose.

They seemed to genuinely believe that someone loved them, that their lives had meaning, that they weren’t just drifting through existence.

I wanted that.

I didn’t know if I believed it yet, but I wanted it.

The more I attended, the more questions I had.

I had been taught things about Christianity in Saudi Arabia.

We learned that Christians believe in three gods, father, son, and holy spirit and that this is sherk uh the unforgivable sin of associating partners with Allah.

We learned that Christians worship Jesus and Mary.

We learned that the Bible has been corrupted and can’t be trusted.

We learned that Christians are misguided people who will go to hell unless they accept Islam.

But these Christians I was meeting didn’t seem misguided.

They seemed confident in what they believed.

They talked about Jesus like he was real, like he was present with them, like he loved them personally.

One evening after the meeting, I stayed behind to help Margaret clean up.

We were washing teacups in the small kitchen and I finally asked her the question that had been bothering me.

Why do you believe Jesus is God? How can God be a man? Margaret didn’t seem surprised by the question.

She dried a cup slowly, thinking about her answer.

“It’s a mystery,” she said finally.

I won’t pretend to fully understand it, but I believe God loved us so much that he came down to our level.

He didn’t stay distant and unreachable.

He became one of us so he could show us what he’s like and so he could save us.

But that doesn’t make sense.

I said God is supposed to be all powerful.

Why would he need to become a man? Why would he let himself be killed? Because love requires sacrifice, Margaret said.

She looked at me with those kind eyes.

The greatest love is when someone lays down their life for their friends.

Jesus did that.

He chose to die for us.

Not because he was weak, but because he loved us that much.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

It was so different from everything I had been taught.

In Islam, God is distant, powerful to be feared.

You submit to him because you have to because he’s God and you’re nothing.

The idea that God would love humans so much that he would become one of them and die for them, it seemed impossible, but it also seemed beautiful.

I started reading the Bible on my own.

Margaret gave me a copy, a modern English translation that was easy to understand.

I would read it at night in my room, hiding it under my pillow like I used to hide that fashion magazine.

I started with the Gospels, uh, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the stories of Jesus’s life.

What struck me immediately was how different Jesus was from what I expected.

I thought he would be stern and judgmental.

But instead, he was kind.

He spent time with outcasts, prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, the poor.

He touched people who were considered unclean.

He forgave people who didn’t deserve forgiveness.

uh and the way he treated women amazed me.

There was a story about a woman caught in adultery.

The religious leaders brought her to Jesus, ready to stone her to death as the law required.

They asked Jesus what he thought they should do.

And Jesus said something I never forgot.

Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.

One by one, the men dropped their stones and walked away.

And Jesus told the woman, “Ai, don’t condemn you.

Go and sin no more.

” He didn’t condemn her.

He defended her.

He saved her life.

There was another story about a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.

In that culture, bleeding made you unclean.

No one could touch you.

You were isolated.

But this woman pushed through a crowd and touched Jesus’s cloak, believing it would heal her.

And it did.

Jesus stopped and called her daughter and told her that her faith had healed her.

He called her daughter.

I read story after story of Jesus honoring women, teaching women, healing women, including women among his followers in a time and place where women women were considered property.

He treated them like people, like they mattered, like they had value.

I thought about my life in Saudi Arabia, about how I was treated, about how I was told that God Allah valued men more than women, that men get twice the inheritance, that a man’s testimony is worth twice a woman’s.

That men can marry four wives, but women can only have one husband.

That men can divorce easily, but women can’t.

That paradise is full of beautiful virgins for men.

But what do women get? And here was Jesus treating women with dignity and respect.

Not because they earned it.

Uh but because they were human beings made in God’s image.

I didn’t believe yet, but I wanted to believe.

My Instagram account was growing.

I had a few thousand followers now.

mostly young women, some Muslim, some ex-Muslim, some just interested in fashion and beauty.

I started posting more personal content, not just outfits, but thoughts, reflections on my journey, what it was like leaving Saudi Arabia, what it was like finding freedom.

The response was overwhelming.

I got hundreds of messages from women in similar situations.

Women trapped in conservative families who dreamed of leaving.

Women who had left and were struggling to rebuild their lives.

Women who wanted to know how I found the courage to walk away.

I also got hate, a lot of hate.

Muslim men sent me messages calling me a a traitor, an apostate.

Uh they said I deserve to die.

They said I was corrupting other Muslim women.

They said Allah would punish me.

Some of the messages were specific threats.

People saying they knew where I lived, that they would find me, that they would make me pay.

I was scared, but I didn’t stop posting.

I wouldn’t be silenced again.

I started speaking at small events, nothing big, just university panels about women’s rights or community gatherings about religious freedom.

I would tell my story in brief form, where I came from, why I left, what I discovered about freedom.

People responded.

After every talk, women would come up to me, Muslim women mostly, and thank me for being brave enough to speak out.

Some of them cried.

Some of them told me they wished they could leave, but didn’t know how.

Some of them just wanted to know they weren’t alone.

Uh, I realized my story had power.

Not because I was special, but because it was real.

And there were thousands of women, living virgins of my story.

But most of them were still trapped.

If I could give them hope, if I could show them that escape was possible, then maybe all the pain I went through had a purpose.

But success in the outside world didn’t fill the void inside me.

I was doing well at university.

My Instagram was growing.

I had friends and a job and my own place to live.

I was even starting to get small paid modeling opportunities.

Nothing major, but enough to make me feel like my dream was becoming real.

On paper, my life looked good.

I was the success story, the girl who escaped and made it.

But at night, alone with myself, I still felt empty.

I tried dating more seriously.

I thought maybe a relationship would fill the void.

Uh, I dated a few different guys, mostly British, mostly white, mostly completely confused about my background and my culture.

One of them was genuinely nice.

His name was James.

He was studying engineering at my university.

We dated for about two months.

He took me to nice restaurants.

We went to museums and movies.

He told me I was beautiful and interesting and strong.

But I didn’t feel anything or I felt something, but it wasn’t enough.

I kept waiting to fall in love, to feel that spark that would make everything make sense, but it never came.

When I broke up with him, he asked why.

I didn’t know how to explain it.

How could I tell him that I was looking for something that he couldn’t give me? That I was looking for meaning and purpose and wholeness and romance wasn’t the answer.

So, I just said it wasn’t working.

Uh that I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship.

He was hurt but accepted it and I went back to being alone.

I kept going to the Thursday women’s group.

By now, I had been attending for about four months.

I knew everyone’s names.

I joined in the discussions more.

I even started praying with them sometimes, though I wasn’t sure who I was praying to.

One evening, the topic was about God’s love.

They were reading from the book of Romans, chapter 8.

One of the women read aloud,”For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

” Uh, I thought about all the things I had been taught separated me from God’s love.

Being a woman, removing my hijab, leaving Islam, questioning, doubting, disobeying.

But this verse said, nothing could separate me from God’s love if I was in Christ Jesus.

What does that mean? I asked.

Being in Christ Jesus, Margaret smiled at me.

It means accepting that Jesus died for you, that his death paid for your sins, that you’re forgiven not because of anything you did, but because of what he did.

And when you believe that, when you accept that, you’re united with him.

You’re in him, and nothing can take that away.

But I’ve done so many things wrong, I said.

My voice was shaking.

I left my family.

I rejected my religion.

I’ve been living for myself.

Why would God love me? Because love isn’t based on what you do.

Another woman said gently.

Then her name was Joy and she was from Nigeria.

It’s based on who God is.

He loves you because he made you, because you’re his child, not because you earned it.

I felt tears starting.

I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t.

In Islam, I was taught that God’s love beer has to be earned.

I said that you have to follow all the rules perfectly.

That you’re never good enough.

That you’re always one sin away from hell.

I’m so tired of trying to be good enough.

You don’t have to be good enough, Margaret said.

She moved closer and put her hand on my arm.

That’s the whole point of Jesus.

We can’t be good enough.

We’re all sinners.

We all fall short.

But Jesus was good enough for us.

And when we accept his sacrifice, his goodness becomes ours.

We are made righteous not by our works but by his grace.

Grace.

That word again.

I had heard it so many times in these meetings, but I was starting to understand what it meant.

Grace meant unearned favor, undeserved love, getting something good that you didn’t work for, the opposite of Islam, the opposite of everything I was taught.

I cried that night in the church basement, surrounded by these women who barely knew me but love me anyway.

I cried for the girl who grew up thinking she was never good enough.

I cried for the woman who was tired of trying to earn love.

I cried for all the years I spent afraid of a god who I thought hated me.

And somewhere in those tears, something began to shift.

I started attending Sunday services at the church.

Not just the Thursday women’s group, but the actual church service with the whole congregation.

It was intimidating at first.

Well, there were hundreds of people there.

All kinds of people, young and old, different races, different backgrounds.

Some dressed formally, some in jeans and t-shirts, families with children, young professionals, elderly couples, everyone mixed together.

The worship was different from anything I’d experienced.

In mosques, everyone prays the same way, facing the same direction, following the same movements.

It’s uniform and regimented.

But here people worshiped differently.

Some raised their hands, some stood still, some closed their eyes, some smiled, some cried.

It was personal, individual.

And the songs, the worship songs, they were about love, about grace, about Jesus’s sacrifice, about being forgiven and redeemed and made new.

I stood in the middle of that crowd listening to hundreds of voices singing about God’s love.

Oh, and I felt something I had never felt in a mosque.

I felt welcomed.

The sermons were different, too.

The pastor didn’t shout or threaten.

He taught from the Bible, explaining what it meant, applying it to real life.

He talked about struggles and doubts and failures.

He was honest about his own weaknesses.

And he always came back to Jesus, to the cross, to the fact that Jesus died for sinners, that his love was unconditional, that his grace was sufficient.

Every week I learned something new about who Jesus was, about what he taught, about how Christianity was not just a religion but a relationship with God.

I was still skeptical, still questioning, still afraid to fully believe.

But I couldn’t deny that something was happening in my heart.

One Sunday, the pastor preached about the prodigal son.

Well, it’s a parable.

Jesus told about a son who demanded his inheritance early, left home, wasted all his money on wild living and ended up broke and desperate.

Finally, he decided to go home and beg his father to hire him as a servant.

But when the father saw his son coming from far away, he ran to him.

Ran.

He didn’t wait for an apology.

He didn’t lecture him.

He didn’t make him prove he was sorry.

He just ran to him and threw his arms around him and kissed him.

And then he threw a party.

He gave his son the best robe, a ring, sandals.

He killed the fattened cuff.

He celebrated because his son who was lost had been found.

His son who was dead was alive again.

The pastor said, “That’s what God is like.

that when we come back to him, no matter what we’ve done, he runs to us.

He doesn’t condemn us.

He celebrates us.

I sat in that pew and I thought about my father.

How when I left, he said I was dead to him.

How there was no mercy, no forgiveness, no way back.

And I thought about my heavenly father if he existed.

Would he reject me too or would he run to me? I wanted to believe he would run to me.

I wanted to believe I could be forgiven.

I wanted to believe I could come home, but I was still afraid.

That week, I finally told Aisha I had been going to church.

We were having coffee after class and she was talking about something and I wasn’t really listening because my mind was on the Sunday sermon on the prodigal son on the question of whether God could really love me.

Are you okay? Aisha asked noticing I was distracted.

I hesitated then I decided to just say it.

I’ve been going to church.

She looked surprised.

Church? Like as a Christian church? Yeah.

There was a pause.

I waited for her to tell me I was crazy, that I had escaped one religion just to fall into another, that I was betraying my culture.

But she didn’t say any of that.

How’s it been? She asked.

confusing, I admitted, but also good.

I don’t know.

I’m still figuring it out.

Aisha nodded slowly.

I get it.

After everything you’ve been through, it makes sense you’d be searching for something.

Does it bother you? I asked.

That I’m exploring Christianity? She shook her head.

You have to find your own path.

I’m not going to judge you for that.

I’m still Muslim, but I’m not the kind of Muslim who thinks everyone has to believe the same things I believe.

I felt relieved.

I hadn’t realized how much I needed her acceptance until I got it.

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