The realization that survival is possible, that they’re not alone, that someone else has walked this path and lived.

We’ve created an underground railroad of sorts.

Safe houses in various cities.

Documents procured through channels.

I don’t ask about job training for women who were never taught skills beyond serving men.

It’s dangerous work.

We’re seen as home wreckers, western agents, corruptors of values.

But for every woman we help escape, for every child bride we prevent, for every life we save, the risk feels worth it.

I’ve learned skills I never imagined.

I can use a computer now creating documents and presentations about women’s health and rights.

I can read and write in three languages, Arabic, English, and now Turkish, as many of our refugees come through Turkey.

I’m studying for a high school equivalency degree.

Each past exam a small victory against everyone who said education was wasted on females.

But the greatest transformation has been internal.

The God I serve now is nothing like the God of my childhood.

That God demanded perfection I could never achieve.

Obedience that crushed my spirit.

Sacrifice of my very self on the altar of men’s desires.

This God, the one I met in my darkest moments, offers grace I don’t deserve, love I can’t earn, and identity that can’t be taken away.

I still struggle with the theology sometimes.

Years of indoctrination don’t disappear overnight.

Sometimes I catch myself covering reflexively when I hear the call to prayer from a distant mosque.

Sometimes I wake in panic, sure, I’ve committed some unforgivable sin by choosing freedom.

Sometimes I see a father with his daughter and rage fills me so completely I can barely breathe.

Pastor Sarah, who has become my spiritual mother, reminds me that healing isn’t linear.

You’re not just recovering from abuse.

She says, “You’re recovering from a systematic destruction of your personhood that began when you were nine.

Be patient with yourself.

God is.

” The hardest parts are the quiet moments when my body remembers.

The phantom pain in my hips from pregnancies too young.

The ache in my arms from children I can’t hold.

The way I still sometimes make myself small in crowds, expecting violence that doesn’t come.

My body keeps the score of traumas my mind tries to forget.

But there is also joy, unexpected, almost guilty joy.

The first time I chose my own clothes, spending an hour in a shop touching fabrics, choosing colors because I liked them, not because they were required.

The first time I ate ice cream on a street in public, feeling the cold sweetness on my tongue without fear of punishment.

The first time I laughed, really laughed at something silly and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had made that sound.

Learning to have friends has been its own journey.

The concept of relationships without hierarchy, without transaction, without fear was foreign to me.

But slowly, carefully, I’ve built friendships with women who see me as Zob, not as divorced woman, not as convert, not as victim, just Zob.

We drink coffee and complain about the weather.

We watch movies and cry at sad parts.

We celebrate birthdays, including mine, acknowledged for the first time since I was nine.

The birthday celebrations still overwhelm me.

This year they surprised me with a cake.

21 candles flickering like tiny promises.

Make a wish, they said.

And I closed my eyes, wishing what I always wish, that my children know they are loved, that they find freedom, that cycles break with them.

I’ve started writing their story, our story, knowing they may never read it, but needing to document it anyway.

If something happens to me and the threats suggest something might, at least there will be a record.

At least someone will know that Zob existed.

That she loved her children.

That she chose freedom even when it cost everything.

The letters I write but cannot send fill a box under my bed.

Letters for birthdays I’m missing.

For first days of school I can’t witness.

For scraped knees I can’t kiss.

I tell them about the sea I can see from my window.

How it reminds me that the world is vast and full of possibilities.

I tell them about the God who loves them even more than I do.

Though I know they’re being taught about a different God entirely.

I tell them that no matter what they’re told about me, I love them enough to want more for them than what I had.

Sometimes information filters through the network.

Hassan has started religious school, showing aptitude for memorization.

My heart breaks knowing the verses he’s memorizing, the interpretations he’s learning, the man he’s being shaped to become.

But I pray, how I pray, that somewhere in those verses, he’ll find the mercy that’s also there, the justice that’s been overlooked, the love that’s been buried under law.

Khaled was beaten severely enough to require medical attention.

The report was sparse on details, but I know my middle child’s spirit, how it would rage against confinement, how it would question authority.

I pray his spirit survives even if his body bears scars.

I pray someone somewhere shows him that strength doesn’t require violence.

Mariam started speaking in full sentences, they say, but has become quiet again lately.

She’s three now, the age where memories begin to stick.

Will she remember me at all? Or will I be erased from her history, replaced by whatever story they tell her about the mother who disappeared? The hardest news came 6 months ago.

The Imam has begun arrangements for Sophia, his new young wife, to be divorced.

She’s 17 now, has produced no children, is therefore defective.

The cycle continues, and I can do nothing but pray for her.

This girl I’ve never met who walked the path I walked, who will soon be discarded as I was discarded.

But I can do something for others.

The clinic has expanded and I’m now coordinating services for an average of 50 women per month.

We provide medical care, yes, but also legal aid for those brave enough to seek divorce, counseling for those working through trauma, education for those who were denied it, job training for those who need independence.

Last month, a girl came in, 14, pregnant, terrified.

Her family had married her to a man in his 50s who had already killed one wife, though it was never proven.

She had run away, found us through whispered networks of desperate women.

As I held her while she sobbed, as I promised her she was safe, as I watched her touch her belly with a mixture of fear and wonder, I saw myself.

But this time, I could intervene.

This time, the girl would be saved.

We got her to safety, arranged for medical care that prioritized her life over anyone’s honor, connected her with a family who would care for her without owning her.

When her baby was born, healthy despite everything, she chose adoption, knowing she couldn’t raise a child while still a child herself.

The baby went to a couple who had prayed for a child for 10 years.

The girl went to school for the first time in her life.

Cycles broke.

This is my ministry now.

Breaking cycles one woman at a time, one girl at a time, one life at a time.

It doesn’t erase my losses, doesn’t bring my children back, doesn’t undo the damage done to my body and soul, but it transforms the pain into purpose, the wounds into wisdom, the scars into stories that might save someone else.

I dream sometimes of reunion.

In these dreams, my children are adults free to make their own choices.

They find me somehow wanting to know the truth.

I tell them everything, the good and bad, the love and loss, the faith that saved me when everything else failed.

In these dreams, they understand.

They forgive.

They choose their own paths free from the cycles that trapped us all.

But even if that dream never becomes reality, I have found something I never expected.

Peace.

Not the peace of resignation or defeat, but the peace of knowing I chose life when death would have been easier.

I chose truth when lies would have been safer.

I chose love when hate would have been justified.

The psychiatrist I see now, yes, therapy is not weakness but strength, has diagnosed me with complex PTSD.

My body and mind bear the imprints of sustained trauma that began before I was fully formed.

But she also speaks of post-traumatic growth, the surprising capacity of humans to not just survive trauma, but to transform through it.

You’re not just surviving, she tells me.

You’re thriving in ways that should be impossible.

Should be impossible.

My whole life is a series of should be impossibles.

I should be dead from childbirth at 12.

I should be broken beyond repair from years of abuse.

I should be hopeless after losing everything.

Instead, I’m here telling this story, proof that impossible is just another word for miracle.

The faith that sustains me now is not the blind obedience of my childhood, but something fiercer, more honest.

I argue with God regularly, questioning why suffering exists, why children pay for adult sins, why freedom costs so much.

But I also thank him for the strength I didn’t know I had, for the people who appeared when I needed them most.

for the love that found me in my darkest moments.

I’ve learned that Christianity isn’t about perfection, but about redemption.

Not about never falling, but about being caught when you do.

Not about having all the answers, but about being held in the questions.

The Jesus I follow now is not the distant prophet of my childhood lessons, but the present comfort in my ongoing healing.

Last week, I stood before a group of social workers, training them on recognizing signs of forced marriage and religious abuse.

My voice didn’t shake as I described the realities.

The medical damage from pregnancies too young.

The psychological impact of being owned rather than loved.

The spiritual trauma of having God weaponized against you.

I watched their faces change from discomfort to determination, knowing that my story would help them save others.

After the presentation, a young woman approached me, hijab perfectly placed, eyes full of fear.

She whispered in Arabic, “My younger sister, she’s eight.

They’re planning.

” She couldn’t finish, but she didn’t need to.

I gave her my card, connected her with resources, watched hope flicker in her eyes, another cycle potentially broken, another girl potentially saved.

This is my life now.

A mosaic of broken pieces forming something unexpectedly beautiful.

Every shard of my shattered past has been picked up, examined, and placed into a new pattern.

The picture isn’t perfect.

There are gaps where my children should be.

Cracks that will never fully seal.

Rough edges that still cut sometimes.

But it’s mine.

This story, this pain, this healing, this purpose, it’s all mine in a way nothing was before.

To my children, if you ever read this, know that I loved you from the moment you existed.

Love you now in your absence.

Will love you until my last breath.

and beyond.

You were never the cause of my suffering.

You were the light that kept me alive in darkness.

I pray for you every day.

Not the prescribed prayers of my childhood, but conversations with a God who knows you by name, who loves you more perfectly than I ever could.

To Hassan, may you learn that true strength protects the vulnerable rather than exploiting them.

May you question what you’re taught and find truth beyond tradition.

May you be the man who breaks the cycle, who sees women as equals, who raises daughters and sons with the same love and opportunities.

To Khaled, may your rebellious spirit lead you to justice rather than anger.

May you channel that fire into changing what’s wrong rather than perpetuating it.

May you be the voice for those who have been silenced, the defender of those who have been crushed.

To Mariam, may you know your worth has nothing to do with your body or your obedience.

May you find education, choose your own path, love whom you choose when you’re ready to choose.

May you never know the weight of being owned.

only the freedom of belonging to yourself and to a god who calls you daughter.

To every woman trapped in the life I escaped.

There is hope.

It may cost everything, but freedom exists.

You may lose all you’ve known, but you’ll find yourself.

The path is treacherous, but you don’t walk it alone.

We are out here, the escaped ones, the surviving ones, the thriving ones, and we remember you.

We pray for you.

We work for the day when no girl will be sold, no woman will be owned, no mother will lose her children for choosing freedom.

To those who perpetuate these systems, I forgive you not because you deserve it, but because hatred is too heavy for my freed heart to carry.

But forgiveness doesn’t mean silence.

I will speak until every child bride is freed.

Until every forced marriage is prevented, until every woman knows she is more than property.

Your time is ending.

The girls are learning to read.

The women are learning their worth.

The mothers are choosing freedom for their daughters.

Change is coming to the God who found me.

Thank you for seeing me when I was invisible.

For pursuing me when I was lost.

For loving me when I was unlovable.

For calling me daughter when the world called me worthless.

For the water that washed me clean.

The blood that bought my freedom.

The love that makes all things new.

This testimony ends, but the story continues.

Every day I wake is a day stolen from those who said I should die for choosing freedom.

Every woman I help escape is a victory against systems of oppression.

Every time I speak, my truth is a reclamation of the voice they tried to silence.

I am Zob.

I am 21 years old.

I am a mother without her children, a daughter without a family, a convert without a homeland.

But I am also a survivor, a thor.

A voice for the voiceless, a hope for the hopeless.

I was bought with a price no money could pay.

Not by any man, but by a god who says I am worth dying for.

My name means fragrant flower in Arabic.

For 18 years, I was crushed, pressed down, destroyed.

But crushing releases fragrance.

Prein extracts oil.

Destruction can precede resurrection.

I am blooming now in soil I never thought I’d find under sun I never thought I’d see in freedom I never thought I’d taste.

This is my testimony that love is stronger than law.

That grace is greater than guilt.

That freedom is worth any price.

That God can make beauty from ashes.

that what man meant for evil, God can use for good.

I was married at 9.

I was a mother at 12.

I was divorced at 18.

I was reborn at 19.

I am free at 21.

And this precious reader is just the beginning.

In the name of the father who calls me daughter, the son who calls me sister, and the spirit who calls me home.

Amen.

 

« Prev