Iranian Activists Attempted to Take Over Times Square, BUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT SHOCKED EVERYONE!

Iranian Activists Attempted to Take Over Times Square, BUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT SHOCKED EVERYONE!

My name is Riean.

I’m 34 years old.

On September 3rd, 2025, I walked into Time Square as a terrorist ready to kill innocent people.

What happened next in those 8 seconds changed my life forever and saved hundreds of lives.

I went from leading an attack to stopping it in moments.

I was born in Thran in 1991 during a time when my country was still healing from war and revolution.

My childhood wasn’t filled with hatred at first.

I remember playing soccer in dusty streets with my younger brother Hassan who was 3 years younger than me.

Our mother would call us in for dinner, her voice echoing through our small apartment in the crowded neighborhood where we lived.

My father worked at a textile factory.

And though we didn’t have much money, we had each other.

Everything changed when I turned 14.

The political tensions in our region had been escalating and foreign involvement in Middle Eastern affairs was reaching a boiling point.

I still remember the exact date, March 15th, 2005.

I was walking home from school when I heard the explosions.

The ground shook beneath my feet and windows shattered in the buildings around me.

I ran toward home, my heart pounding, knowing instinctively that something terrible had happened.

When I reached our street, our apartment building was nothing but rubble and smoke.

Neighbors were digging through the debris with their bare hands, screaming names of their loved ones.

I found my father sitting on the curb across the street, his face covered in dust and tears.

He looked at me with eyes I had never seen before, completely broken and hollow.

He didn’t need to say anything.

I knew my mother and Hassan were gone.

The official reports said it was a targeted strike against terrorist cells operating in our building.

My father and I knew this was a lie.

Our building housed families, shopkeepers, students, and elderly people.

The only crime my mother committed was making tea for our neighbors when they were sick.

Hassan’s only crime was dreaming of becoming a doctor someday.

But the bombs didn’t discriminate between innocent families and supposed terrorists.

Ask yourself this question.

What would happen to your heart if you watched your government dig your mother and little brother out of rubble, knowing they died because of foreign policies you couldn’t control? That night, something inside me broke.

that would take 20 years and a miracle to fix.

My father never recovered from losing them.

He stopped going to work, stopped eating properly, stopped caring about anything.

Within 2 years, grief had consumed him completely, and I found myself orphaned at 16.

I was angry at God, angry at the world, but most of all, I was angry at America and everything it represented to me.

I began attending underground meetings where young men like me gathered to share their stories of loss and rage.

Everyone had lost someone.

Ahmed lost his sister in a drone strike.

Mahmud watched his father die in a bombing that was supposed to target a weapons facility but hit a marketplace instead.

We fed off each other’s anger, turning our grief into something darker and more dangerous.

The group’s leader was an older man who had connections with international networks.

He taught us that our pain meant nothing unless we channeled it into action.

He showed us videos of American families celebrating holidays, going to movies, living normal lives while our families were buried under concrete and metal.

He convinced us that these people were complicit in our suffering.

simply by existing in a country whose government caused our pain.

By the time I was 20, I had completely bought into the ideology that innocent Americans deserve to suffer because of what their military had done to innocent Iranians.

It seems insane now, but grief and anger can twist your thinking in ways you cannot imagine unless you have experienced it yourself.

I genuinely believed that killing random people in Times Square would somehow honor my mother and brother’s memory.

I spent the next 14 years of my life planning and preparing for revenge.

I learned English, studied American culture, and eventually found ways to travel to the United States.

I connected with other displaced Middle Eastern men who shared similar stories and similar rage.

We formed our own cell, planning attacks that would maximize casualties and media attention.

The planning process took years.

We studied security patterns, identified the busiest times and locations, and acquired everything we needed to carry out coordinated attacks.

Time Square was perfect because it represented everything we hated about American culture.

Commercialism, excess, and careless happiness.

While people in our homeland suffered, I remember the exact moment I decided that innocent people deserve to suffer for what I perceived as their government’s crimes.

It was December 2023 and I was watching families ice skating at Rockefeller Center during Christmas.

Children were laughing, couples were holding hands, and everyone seemed so blissfully unaware of the pain their country had caused around the world.

Instead of seeing their innocence, I saw their ignorance, and I convinced myself that their ignorance made them guilty.

For months leading up to September 3rd, 2025, I felt no doubt about our mission.

I had successfully recruited three other men who had similar stories of loss and displacement.

We spent countless hours together reinforcing each other’s commitment to the cause and preparing for what we believed would be justified revenge against an unjust system.

Looking back now, I realized that I had completely lost sight of my mother’s gentle heart and my brother’s dreams of healing people.

I had become exactly the opposite of everything they represented.

But I was too consumed by darkness to see it.

I woke up on September 3rd, 2025 at exactly 5:47 a.

m.

without needing an alarm.

My body had been preparing for this day for months, and the adrenaline coursing through my veins made sleep impossible.

Anyway, I remember lying in the small apartment in Queens, staring at the ceiling and thinking about my mother’s face one last time.

I whispered to her in Farsy, telling her that today I would finally make them pay for what they did to her and Hassan.

The apartment we had rented was sparse and functional.

We kept nothing personal there, nothing that could be traced back to our real identities or our families back home.

I got up and performed my morning prayers, but they weren’t prayers of peace or submission to God.

They were prayers of vengeance, asking for strength to carry out what I believed was righteous justice.

Looking back, I realized how far I had strayed from any real understanding of faith or spirituality.

My three team members arrived at the safe house by 7 a.

m.

as planned.

There was Ahmed, a 28-year-old Syrian who had lost his wife and daughter in an air strike.

Mahmud was 31 from Iraq and had watched American soldiers accidentally kill his father during a raid on the wrong house.

The youngest was Kasim, only 24, whose entire extended family had died when their wedding celebration was mistaken for a terrorist gathering.

We didn’t talk much that morning.

Each of us was lost in our own thoughts and preparations.

I remembered the sound of weapons being checked and rechecked, the metallic clicking and sliding that had become as familiar as breathing over the past months.

We had rehearsed this day hundreds of times in abandoned warehouses outside the city.

But today felt different.

Today it was real.

The plan was meticulously organized.

We would enter Time Square from different directions at exactly 2:30 p.

m.

when foot traffic was at its peak.

I would position myself in the center of the main intersection while Ahmed, Mahmood, and Kazim would take positions at strategic points around the square.

When I raised my right hand above my head, that would be the signal to begin our coordinated attack.

We had studied the security camera locations, the police patrol patterns, and the escape routes.

We knew exactly how many seconds we would have before law enforcement could respond effectively.

The whole operation was designed to maximize casualties while giving us the best chance of sending our message to the world.

I remember looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror that morning and feeling completely disconnected from the person staring back at me.

My eyes looked hollow like my fathers had after we lost everything.

I had become a walking monument to grief and rage with no room left for hope or love or any of the qualities that had once defined me as Hassan’s big brother and my mother’s son.

My hands weren’t shaking from fear as I got dressed that morning.

They were shaking from years of suppressed rage.

Finally finding an outlet, I put on dark jeans and a black jacket that would help me blend into the crowd, but also allow easy access to everything I needed to carry out the plan.

I remember thinking that this jacket would be the last piece of clothing I would ever choose for myself.

Before we left the apartment, we destroyed our phones and any identification that could be traced back to our real names.

We had fake IDs for the mission, but our plan was never to escape and live normal lives afterward.

We were prepared to die that day, believing that martyrdom would somehow transform our pain into something meaningful.

The subway ride into Manhattan felt surreal.

We traveled separately, but I kept catching glimpses of Ahmed and Mahmud in different train cars.

We looked like any other group of young men heading into the city for work or tourism.

Nobody around us had any idea that they were sharing space with people who intended to shatter the normaly of their Tuesday afternoon forever.

When I emerged from the subway station into Time Square, the sensory overload was overwhelming.

Thousands of people moved in every direction, speaking dozens of different languages, taking pictures, laughing, arguing, living their lives completely unaware of what was about to happen.

The massive electronic billboards flashed advertisements for movies, restaurants, and Broadway shows.

Everything seemed so loud and bright and alive.

I found my designated position in the center of the main intersection and checked my watch.

It was 2:28 p.

m.

I could see Ahmed near the red steps, Mahmood by the TKTS booth, and Kasim positioned near the entrance to the subway.

We were all exactly where we needed to be.

Hundreds of innocent people surrounded us, including families with small children, elderly tourists taking pictures, and teenagers who reminded me painfully of what Hassan might have looked like if he had lived to see his 20ies.

For just a moment, I hesitated.

A little girl walked past me, holding her father’s hand, chattering excitedly about seeing a Broadway show.

She had dark hair like Hassan’s and was about the same age he was when he died.

But I forced myself to remember why I was there.

I reminded myself that these people’s government had stolen my family from me and that their comfortable lives were built on the suffering of people like my mother and brother.

At exactly 2:30 p.

m.

, I raised my right hand above my head to give the signal.

This was the moment 20 years of grief and anger had been building toward.

This was supposed to be the moment when my family’s deaths finally meant something.

But what happened next changed everything about who I was and what I believed about life, death, justice, and the power of God to transform even the most hardened heart.

The moment my hand reached its highest point above my head, something impossible happened.

A flash of brilliant white light erupted from directly above me, brighter than anything I had ever seen in my life.

It wasn’t lightning because the sky was completely clear that afternoon.

It wasn’t an explosion because there was no sound, no heat, no debris.

It was pure, overwhelming light that seemed to come from heaven itself and focused directly on where I was standing.

The light hit me like a physical force, but instead of knocking me backward, it drove me straight down to my knees on the concrete.

My legs simply gave out beneath me as if every muscle in my body had suddenly forgotten how to function.

I tried to maintain my balance, tried to complete the signal to my team members, but my body was no longer under my own control.

Something far more powerful than my will had taken over every part of me.

You have to understand I went from wanting to kill to wanting to save in the space of a single heartbeat.

The hatred that had been burning in my chest for 20 years was suddenly extinguished and replaced with something I had never experienced before.

It was love, but not human love.

It was perfect, unconditional, overwhelming love that seemed to know everything terrible I had done and planned to do, yet love me anyway.

In that moment of supernatural light, I became aware of a presence surrounding me that I knew immediately was Jesus Christ.

I had spent my entire adult life rejecting Christianity, viewing it as the religion of my enemies.

But there was no mistaking who this was.

He didn’t speak to me with words, but somehow I understood everything he was communicating to my heart.

He showed me that the families around me were precious to him, that each person I had planned to hurt was someone’s beloved child, parent, or sibling.

The most shocking part was that he showed me Hassan and my mother, and they were safe and at peace.

All these years, I had been carrying out what I thought was revenge for their deaths.

But I suddenly understood that they would have been horrified by what I was planning to do in their memory.

Hassan had wanted to be a doctor to save lives, not to take them.

My mother had spent her life showing kindness to neighbors and strangers alike.

I could feel tears streaming down my face, but they weren’t tears of anger or frustration anymore.

They were tears of recognition and repentance.

For the first time in 20 years, I was crying not because of what had been taken from me, but because of what I had almost taken from others.

The weight of nearly becoming a murderer crashed down on me with such force that I could barely breathe.

My whole body was trembling as I knelt there in the middle of Time Square with thousands of people walking around me.

Some tourists stopped to stare at this middle eastern man having what must have looked like a complete breakdown in public, but I was completely unaware of their attention.

All I could focus on was the overwhelming presence of divine love that was transforming every cell in my body.

The paralysis I felt wasn’t frightening because I knew instinctively that this force was completely good and that I was safer in this moment than I had ever been in my entire life.

My hand which had been raised to signal death and destruction fell limply to my side.

Instead of being a symbol of violence, it became completely powerless to carry out any harm.

I became aware that Ahmed, Mahmud, and Kasim were still in their positions, waiting for me to complete the signal.

They had no idea what was happening to me or that our entire mission had just been supernaturally interrupted.

From their perspectives, I had simply frozen in place and dropped to my knees for no apparent reason.

They were probably wondering if I had suffered some kind of medical emergency or panic attack.

The spiritual transformation happening inside me was so intense that I started speaking out loud but not in Farsy or English.

Words were pouring out of my mouth in languages I had never learned.

Prayers to Jesus Christ that I had no memory of ever hearing before.

I found myself confessing sins I had committed, people I had hated, and plans I had made to hurt innocent people.

Look inside your own heart right now and imagine what it would feel like to have every dark thought, every bitter grudge, every plan for revenge suddenly replaced with perfect peace and overwhelming love for people you had considered your enemies just moments before.

That’s what was happening to me as I knelt on that concrete in the middle of one of the busiest places in the world.

I became aware that I needed to stop what was about to happen.

My team members were still armed and positioned to carry out attacks that would kill dozens of people, including children.

The same divine presence that had stopped me was now compelling me to save the very people I had come to destroy.

Despite having never trusted American law enforcement in my life, I found myself crawling on my hands and knees toward two police officers who were standing near the TKTS booth.

Every instinct I had developed over years of anti-American sentiment was screaming at me not to approach them, but I was being moved by a power greater than my own fears or prejudices.

As I crawled across the concrete, dragging my knees and palms against the rough surface, I could feel that the supernatural light was still surrounding me, even though it was no longer visible to my physical eyes.

The presence of Jesus Christ was as real and tangible as the ground beneath me.

And I knew that this moment was going to define the rest of my life in ways I couldn’t yet comprehend.

When I reached the two police officers, I was still on my hands and knees, unable to stand up properly.

They were both looking down at me with confusion and concern, probably thinking I was either having a medical emergency or suffering from some kind of mental breakdown.

The taller officer, who appeared to be in his 40s, immediately crouched down to my level and asked if I needed medical assistance.

I started screaming at them in English, words tumbling out of my mouth so fast I could barely control them.

I told them there were three armed men positioned around Time Square who were waiting for my signal to begin a coordinated terrorist attack.

I pointed frantically toward Ahmed’s position near the red steps, then toward Mahmud by the TKTS booth, then toward Kasim near the subway entrance.

My voice was from crying and shaking with the intensity of what I was trying to communicate.

The officers looked at each other with the kind of expression that law enforcement develops when they’re trying to determine if someone is reporting a genuine threat or experiencing a psychological crisis.

But something in my desperation must have convinced them to take me seriously because the younger officer immediately started speaking into his radio while the older one kept asking me specific questions about locations, weapons, and
timing.

I couldn’t stop myself from confessing everything.

The divine compulsion to tell the truth was stronger than any survival instinct I had ever felt.

I told them about the months of planning, the safe house in Queens, the weapons we had acquired, and the specific targets we had identified for maximum casualties.

I gave them detailed descriptions of each of my team members, including their real names and the countries they had fled from.

Looking back across the square, I could see Ahmed staring at me with growing alarm.

He was too far away to hear what I was saying to the police officers, but he could clearly see that something had gone terribly wrong with our plan.

I watched his face change from confusion to recognition to absolute panic as he realized that his team leader was voluntarily talking to law enforcement.

The older officer was asking me to stand up and move away from the crowded area, but I kept pointing toward my former teammates and insisting that they needed to be stopped immediately.

I told him that Ahmed had explosives in his backpack, that Mahmud was carrying weapons capable of killing dozens of people in seconds, and that Kasim was positioned to block the main escape route so people couldn’t flee to safety.

Within minutes, I could see police officers appearing from multiple directions, moving strategically toward each of the positions I had identified.

They were being careful not to cause a panic among the tourists and locals, but I could tell they were taking my warnings seriously.

Radio communications were crackling back and forth as more law enforcement arrived on the scene.

Ahmed was the first to realize what was happening.

I watched him look around frantically as he noticed police officers closing in on his position from three different angles.

For a moment, our eyes met across the crowded square, and the expression on his face was one of complete betrayal and disbelief.

Here was the man who had recruited him, trained with him, and planned this attack with him for months.

And I was now the person responsible for destroying everything we had worked toward.

I couldn’t stop myself from confessing everything because the presence of Jesus Christ was still overwhelming every part of my consciousness.

It was as if 20 years of lies, hatred, and deception were being forced out of me all at once, replaced with an irresistible compulsion to tell the truth and protect innocent people.

Every secret plan, every hidden weapon, every escape route we had prepared was pouring out of my mouth without any filter or self-preservation.

The younger officer had called for backup and I could see unmarked cars and additional uniformed personnel arriving from multiple directions.

They were coordinating a simultaneous apprehension of all three suspects based on the information I was providing in real time.

I was describing not just their locations, but their likely reactions, their backup plans, and the specific weapons they were carrying.

Mahmood was the second to notice the police presence.

I saw him start to reach into his jacket, probably for a weapon, but two plain officers approached him from behind before he could complete the motion.

They tackled him to the ground.

right there among the crowd of tourists and I could hear people screaming and scattering as they realized something dangerous was happening.

Kasim tried to run when he saw Mahmud being arrested, but the police had already surrounded his position near the subway entrance.

Based on my detailed description of our plan, he was apprehended within seconds.

his weapons confiscated before he could use them to hurt anyone or himself.

The most surreal part was that I felt no loyalty to my former teammates anymore.

No regret about betraying men who had trusted me with their lives.

The supernatural transformation happening in my heart had completely rewritten my understanding of loyalty, justice, and righteousness.

Instead of feeling like I was betraying my brothers in arms, I felt like I was finally protecting my real brothers and sisters, all the innocent people around me who had nothing to do with the pain and loss that had driven us to this point.

I kept talking to the officers, giving them addresses, phone numbers, and details about our support network.

I told them about other planned attacks, other cells we had been in contact with, and other locations where weapons might be stored.

I couldn’t stop the flow of information, even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t.

For the first time in 20 years, telling the truth felt more important than protecting myself.

You have to understand that this complete reversal of my allegiances happened in the space of minutes, not days or weeks of gradual change.

One moment I was ready to kill for my cause and the next moment I was risking my own life to save the very people I had considered my enemies.

The FBI interrogation lasted for 18 hours straight.

I was taken to a secure facility in lower Manhattan where teams of agents, translators, and terrorism specialists questioned me about every detail of our network, our plans, and our connections to international terrorist organizations.

What shocked them most was that I answered every single question completely honestly, volunteering information they hadn’t even thought to ask for yet.

Agent Sarah Martinez was the lead investigator assigned to my case.

She told me later that in 15 years of counterterrorism work, she had never encountered a suspect who provided such comprehensive cooperation from the very first moment of questioning.

I gave them names, addresses, financial records, communication methods, and detailed plans for attacks that were scheduled to take place in six other American cities over the following months.

The information I provided led to the arrest of 47 individuals across 12 states within the first week.

Weapons caches were discovered in storage units from California to New York.

Bomb making materials were confiscated from apartments in Chicago, Detroit, and Miami.

The FBI estimated that my cooperation prevented attacks that could have killed over 300 innocent people and injured thousands more.

During those first few days in federal custody, I couldn’t sleep or eat properly because the supernatural presence I had experienced in Time Square was still with me.

I kept feeling an overwhelming urge to pray, but I didn’t know how to pray to Jesus Christ.

All my life, my prayers had been Islamic prayers focused on duty, submission, and sometimes revenge.

Now, I felt drawn to pray for forgiveness, healing, and protection for the very people I had spent years planning to hurt.

A week into my detention, Agent Martinez brought someone to meet me who would change the trajectory of my entire future.

His name was Chaplain Robert Thompson, a gentleman in his 60s who had been ministering to federal prisoners for over 20 years.

He carried with him a worn leather Bible and the kind of peaceful presence that reminded me of my mother’s compassion before hatred consumed my heart.

Chaplain Thompson didn’t try to convert me or preach at me.

Instead, he simply asked if I wanted to understand what had happened to me in Time Square.

When I told him about the supernatural light, the overwhelming love, and the complete transformation of my heart, he nodded as if he had heard similar stories before.

He explained that what I had experienced was what Christians call a divine encounter with Jesus Christ.

He gave me my first Bible, a simple paperback version with large print.

I devoured every page like a starving man consuming his first meal in weeks.

The words seemed to come alive as I read them, especially the stories about Jesus forgiving people who had done terrible things.

the thief on the cross, the woman caught in adultery, the persecutor named Paul who became an apostle after his own supernatural encounter with Christ.

Reading about Paul’s transformation was especially meaningful because he had been responsible for imprisoning and killing Christians before Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

If God could forgive and transform someone who had murdered believers, then maybe there was hope for someone like me who had planned to murder innocent people.

My sentencing hearing took place 6 months later.

The federal prosecutor recommended a sentence of 25 years to life based on the severity of the charges and the scale of the planned attacks.

However, my unprecedented level of cooperation and the ongoing intelligence I was providing led the judge to sentenced me to 15 years with the possibility of parole after 8 years if I continued to assist law enforcement efforts.

During my time in federal prison, I spent every available hour studying the Bible and meeting with Chaplain Thompson.

He taught me about forgiveness.

Not just receiving it from God, but learning to extend it to others.

The hardest lesson was learning to forgive the government officials and military personnel whose actions had killed my mother and brother.

For years, my hatred for them had been the driving force of my entire existence.

Chaplain Thompson helped me understand that forgiveness didn’t mean pretending that injustice hadn’t occurred or that my family’s deaths didn’t matter.

Instead, it meant releasing my right to revenge and trusting that God’s justice was more perfect than anything I could achieve through violence.

It meant choosing to break the cycle of retaliation that had turned me into the very kind of person who might have killed someone else’s mother and brother.

The process of forgiving took almost 3 years.

Some days I felt genuine peace and love for my former enemies.

Other days the old anger would surge back and I would find myself fantasizing about revenge again.

But gradually with constant prayer and Bible study, the hatred that had defined me for 20 years began to dissolve and be replaced with something I had never experienced before.

Genuine compassion for people who had hurt me.

Look inside your own heart right now and ask yourself what grudges you’re carrying that might be poisoning your ability to experience real peace.

I’m not talking about minor annoyances or everyday frustrations, but the deep wounds that have shaped how you see the world and other people.

What would your life look like if you could release those resentments and replace them with the kind of love that transforms enemies into family? The hardest part wasn’t forgiving them, though.

The hardest part was forgiving myself.

I had to come to terms with the fact that I had been willing to murder children, grandparents, teenagers, and families who had never done anything to hurt me personally.

I had to accept that my pain, however real and justified, had turned me into someone capable of inflicting the same kind of devastating loss on other families that had been inflicted on mine.

Chaplain Thompson taught me that self forgiveness was just as important as forgiving others and that both were only possible through accepting Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

He explained that Jesus had died not just for the sins of good people who made occasional mistakes, but specifically for people like me who had planned genuine evil and needed radical transformation.

I was released on parole after serving exactly 8 years and 4 months.

The day I walked out of federal prison in October 2033, Agent Martinez was waiting for me with an offer that would define the rest of my life.

The Department of Homeland Security wanted me to work as a consultant in their counterterrorism division, using my insider knowledge of extremist networks to help prevent other attacks and reach other radicalized individuals before they crossed the line into violence.

My first assignment was to speak at a mosque in Brooklyn where the FBI had identified several young men who were showing signs of radicalization.

Standing in front of 50 Muslim men, many of whom reminded me of myself at their age, I told them my story exactly as I’m telling it to you now.

I described the pain of losing my family, the years of consuming hatred, and the moment when divine intervention saved me from becoming a mass murderer.

The response was mixed.

Some of the men walked out when I mentioned Jesus Christ, unwilling to hear about conversion from Islam to Christianity.

Others stayed and asked questions that lasted until nearly midnight.

Three of them approached me privately afterward and admitted they had been planning their own attacks on American targets.

Within 6 months, all three had voluntarily entered a rehabilitation program I helped design for former extremists.

Working with Homeland Security opened doors I never could have imagined.

I began traveling across the country speaking at universities, community centers, and government facilities about the psychology of radicalization and the possibility of transformation.

My message was always the same.

Hatred destroys the person carrying it even more than it hurts its intended targets.

And no amount of pain justifies inflicting that same pain on innocent people.

The most challenging part of my new life was learning to build relationships with the families of terrorism victims.

Through a restorative justice program, I was connected with people who had lost loved ones in attacks similar to what I had planned.

The first meeting was with Margaret Sullivan, whose daughter had been killed in a bombing in London 3 years before my arrest.

Margaret was 72 years old with gray hair and kind eyes that reminded me of my own mother.

When she agreed to meet with me, I expected anger demands for explanation or righteous condemnation of everything I had represented.

Instead, she sat across from me in a small conference room and simply asked me to tell her about my mother and brother.

For 2 hours, we shared stories about the people we had lost and the different ways grief had shaped our lives.

At the end of our conversation, Margaret did something that shattered whatever remained of my old world view.

She reached across the table, took my hands in hers, and told me she forgave me not just for what I had planned to do, but for all the hatred I had carried against people like her daughter.

She said that holding on to anger against me would not bring her daughter back, but that my transformation might prevent other daughters from dying in senseless violence.

That meeting led to my involvement in a program that brings together former extremists with victims of terrorism.

Over the past seven years, I have facilitated over 200 such encounters.

Not all of them end in forgiveness and reconciliation, but enough of them do to convince me that the same divine love that transformed my heart in Times Square is still active in the world today.

My work has expanded beyond counterterrorism into broader peace building efforts between Muslim and Christian communities.

I speak regularly at churches about the need to love and understand Muslims who are struggling with anger and displacement.

I speak at mosques about the radical love of Jesus Christ that can heal wounds that seem impossible to overcome.

If Jesus could love someone who planned mass murder, he can love anyone.

This isn’t just a nice religious sentiment for me.

It’s the foundation of everything I now believe about human nature, divine grace, and the possibility of transformation.

I have seen men who were planning suicide bombings become counselors who help other extremists find peaceful alternatives.

I have watched mothers who lost children to terrorism choose to mentor young people who remind them of the attackers who destroyed their families.

The most meaningful part of my current work is a program I developed for the children of extremists and the children of terrorism victims.

These young people grow up carrying either inherited hatred or inherited trauma and both can be equally destructive.

We bring them together in summer camps and year-long mentorship programs where they learn that they don’t have to be defined by the worst things that happened to their families.

I’m asking you as someone who has walked through the darkest valley of human hatred and emerged into the light of divine love to examine what you’re carrying in your own heart.

You may not be planning terrorism, but are you harboring resentments that are slowly poisoning your ability to love other people? Are you allowing past hurts to justify present anger toward people who had nothing to do with your pain? The supernatural encounter I experienced in Time Square is available to anyone who genuinely seeks transformation.

Jesus Christ is still appearing to people in miraculous ways.

Still offering radical forgiveness to people who think they’re beyond redemption.

Still transforming hearts that seem hopelessly hardened by grief and anger.

September 3rd, 2025 was supposed to be a day of destruction that would add to the cycle of violence and retaliation that has plagued human history since the beginning of time.

But God made it a day of salvation, not just for me, but for every person whose life was saved by my surrender to divine love instead of human hatred.

I want to close with a prayer for anyone listening who recognizes themselves in my story.

Jesus, I pray for every person whose heart has been hardened by loss, betrayal, or injustice.

Show them the same mercy you showed a terrorist like me.

transform their pain into compassion, their anger into advocacy for peace, and their desire for revenge into a hunger for reconciliation.

Amen.