God has been showing me a little bit of my gift every day and I am excited to hear and learn from Him. He has taught me that I have the ability to fully understand what someone is going through and love them exactly how they need to be loved. I have been asking God to allow me to see my gift in its fullness.
Recently, He has been doing just that.
The other day I needed to wash my clothes at the laundromat and while I was packing up my clothes, God told me to bring my bible. With clothes in one hand and my bible tucked away in my backpack I headed to the laundromat. When I arrived, I was sitting by myself waiting for my clothes to wash and a girl, we will call her Mary (I will not say her name for legal purposes), walked into the store. She immediately grabbed my attention. As soon as she walked in she grabbed a drink from the vending machine and sat down right next to me. She looked at me, said hi, and offered me a sip of her drink. HOW FREAKING KIND. We made an instant connection and started talking about each other’s lives. She started telling me how she loves art and would love to take me to this art expo down the street. I knew that this was why God wanted me to bring my bible. I told her I love to paint and had a book painted in my backpack if she wants to see it. She said OF COURSE! So she looked at the cover and asked if this was a bible and then proceeded to ask if she could look inside the book.
Mary told me that she was a 21 year old Muslim, and just a reminder, it is illegal for anyone to talk about Christianity to a Muslim in Malaysia or they can get arrested or kicked out of the country due to the Sharia Law…UNLESS, the Muslim wants to hear about it.
Mary wanted to hear about it.
Mary was different. She was not wearing her Hijab (the headscarf worn by Muslim women). The one word that God kept speaking to me over and over in my head was freedom. And in that moment I felt the joy Mary could have if she was free, but in that same moment I felt the weight of her captivity.
Mary was born into a Muslim family. Had no say in what she wanted to believe. And it is completely ILLEGAL for her to believe in anything except the Muslim faith. Even if she wanted to believe in Jesus, she could get thrown into jail or killed for turning to Christianity. I felt the weight of her chains. She’s not free. She’s being held captive.
In America, sometimes we are chained on the outside, but we still have our thoughts on the inside that give us our freedom. But here, people are not only chained on the outside, but are not allowed to be free in their thoughts, which makes them chained on the inside too.
I am so grateful that I get to feel the full weight of people, because in that moment I get to truly understand them. I get to meet them where they are at and love them how they need to be loved. Mary is going to experience freedom, whether it’s with me or with someone else that God puts in her life along the way, but I have full confidence in God that He will set her free.
Please feel free to join me in prayer for Mary to experience the full freedom and love that our Savior has for her 🙂
