"I don't believe in chance encounters. I believe that everyone crosses our path for a reason. If we are wise, we will distill that interaction to discover how we are meant to grow from it. At the May 2015 ICNA-MAS Convention, I was assigned to be room-mates with a colleague from ICNA Relief's Florida chapter. Let's call her Jane.
As we turned in for the night, I learned Jane once was a pastoral worker. 20 years ago, her role at a University in the South involved interfaith work. Meeting international students led her to learn about Islam. Two years later she embraced the faith.
Jane's decision came with a price. A price that the faint of faith may have recoiled from. It cost her her marriage. It cost her her children, then about 6 and 4 years old. She lost her job, and her family of origin. She was asked to withdraw from the university. She underwent court ordered psychiatric evaluations (only to be found to be among the most grounded of people). She said, twenty years ago, not only was it the South but Islam was seen as a cult.
As a mother, to have your children taken from you, to lose your place in society, to be robbed of all you've ever known. Talk about sticker shock. Given that I don't hesitate to ask the big questions, has being Muslim been worth the cost to her, I wanted to know?
'Alhamdollilah', she responded in a heartbeat. Judaism and Christianity gave her the ten commandments, she said, and Islam gave her the details as to how to fulfill those commandments. It's a process towards growth, she said. 'For instance, the ten commandments forbid adultery and Islam shows you all the little things that keep you from inadvertently falling into it. Because we don't intentionally set out to sin. Islam provides the guidance necessary to keeping life simple,' she said.
Mary and I talked about her teenage children from her second marriage to a Muslim man, about embracing her now adult children from her first marriage, unconditionally. She talked about her work with FEMA. About finding her true calling as a beacon of hope amidst Hurricane Katrina, as Director of Disaster Relief Services with ICNA Relief USA. The two of us chatted till 2:30 a.m. or was it 3:00 a.m.?
I couldn't help but wonder how, when we are born into a faith, we often take it so lightly. We are even negligent with it. Yet to abide by that same faith, other people have made such huge sacrifices.
As I said, I was meant to meet Jane. Ramadan had been on the horizon. The questions our conversation had raised shaped my month: How can I make sure my faith is my North Star in every choice I make, whether big or small? What should I be doing so I, too, find her kind of conviction to do right by God? How could I use my calling as a writer to live my faith more fully? And, most importantly, what could I learn from her about putting all my trust in my Lord?"
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