Description: From a broken family and society, a woman finds support from some Muslim friends.

Every Muslim has a story about their journey to Islam.  Each one is interesting and curious to me.  God truly guides who he wants and only who he wants.  I feel so blessed to have been one of the chosen.  Here is my story.

I always believed in one God.  My entire life during hardship, I asked God for help even as a child.  I remember crying on my knees in the kitchen, screaming and crying all around me.  I was praying for God to make it stop.  Religion on the other hand never did make sense.  The older I got, the less it really made sense to me.  People thinking they were the negotiator between you and God.

I felt the same about Jesus, [may God praise him].  How does it work that this man would save us all from our sins?  Why do we have the right to sin just because of him?  I refused the bible in all of its versions, believing something translated and rewritten so many times could not to be the real words of God.  Around the age of fifteen I had given up on the idea of finding God.

Growing up, my family was the average American family.  Everyone I knew had similar problems growing up.  My dad was a hardworking blue collar alcoholic.  As time progressed his condition worsened, and so did his perversion.  Sexual abuse, physical abuse, and fear made an imprint on my childhood that would reflect the rest of my life.  He passed away when I was in the sixth grade.  My parents had divorced by then.  I was the youngest of eight children.  My mother would go to work to support us, and I was home alone a lot.

Here I was, one of those kids who pull from society, who scare people when they walk into a room.  I began wearing black clothing and the dark makeup.  I listened to the gothic music and fantasized about death.  Death seemed to be less of fear and more of solution to this growing problem.  I felt alone all time, even around friends.  I tried to fill the gap with cigarettes, then alcohol, sex, drugs and then anything that would take me from my own thoughts.  I tried to kill myself at least fifteen times.  No matter what I tried this pain inside of me never seemed to subside.

I was in college when I became pregnant with my son, I feared for my son’s health and could not dream of giving him away.  I worked endlessly to provide for my son.  Squeezing all the pain and anger into my heart, I changed my life some.  By this time, I trusted no one.  Three years later, I started to date again.  I got engaged.  I truly wanted to have the something more.  As with all of my past experiences, my world came crashing down.  I was 25 and pregnant with my daughter and ended the relationship with my fiancé after he repeatedly cheated and physically hurt me.  I had no idea what was next.

During this time I was working for a Pakistani guy who was Muslim.  I never watched the news or even cared really what was going on.  Being Muslim to me was no different than any other religion.  As time moved on I became friends with several Muslim men.  I began to notice something dramatically different.  They had these unquestionable morals.  A devotion to God in a way that required them to pray five times a day.  Let alone the fact that they did not drink or do drugs.  For my generation this was old school morals, maybe your grandparents might have followed.

When my daughter was born, you can’t imagine my surprise when one of these guys came in and brought gifts.  I was shocked stupid he held her and spoke to her.  I had never seen men behave this way over a baby.  The kindness only increased with time over the next four months.  I can’t express the love that was shown to us.  Slowly my interest in their religion grew.  I was curious as to what kind of religion could instill these kinds of values into people.

I was sharing a home with seven people when one night I decided to borrow my roommate’s computer.  I was too afraid to offend my friends by asking them questions, so I turned to the internet.  The first site I opened was http://www.islam-brief-guide.org.  I was dumb founded.  It was if a black cloth had been lifted from my body, and I swear to you that I had never felt so close to God.  Within twenty-four hours, I took my Shahadah.

To this day the majority of my time is spent on research.  For the first time in my life something had stopped the anger, and the pain.  I truly felt the love and fear of God.  God had replaced the pain inside of me with his light, and faith in him.  Since my conversion, God has truly blessed me.  God gave me the strength to quite smoking, drinking and have not used drugs in almost two years.  I am married to a wonderful Muslim man.  He has taken my children and made them ours.  I have something that I always wanted - a family, [all praise is due to God].