I wasn’t born a Christian nor did I grow up in a home where Jesus Christ was welcomed. Even my town or country neither appreciated nor accepted the ultimate truth about who God really is. This is because I was born in Iran. Christianity had been very unknown and strange to me. As a child, I could feel and see that there was something wrong about myself. I didn’t appreciate going to the mosque nor hanging out with my more religious friends. I had barely opened a Koran in the eight years I spent there. Even though I knew some verses that I had memorized in Arabic, I didn’t quite understand what they meant.
At the age of eight, my mother, sister and I moved to France due to political issues. In France, I was free. At school, I didn’t have to do a daily routine to remember all the martyrs Iran lost during the Iran-Iraq war: I didn’t have to hit my chest and simulate cries to be liked by the administration of my school. I didn’t have to be so hot under my school uniform without being able to take my veil off. School was a horrific experience in Iran, really. Now that I think about it, it would be fair to compare it to the Nazis campaign for the youth; it’s not about gaining more knowledge but having one perspective. I remember screaming out loud: Marg bar Amrika. Marg bar Israel (it means death to the U.S., death to Israel). I had strictly no clue why we were being taught to be so hateful. I personally loved American music (which I listened to illegally) or even how the Hollywoodian accent sounded.
It was not until I came to the U.S. that I heard who Jesus really is. The first few churches I attended looked like a sect to me. You have to understand that I lived in France for another eight years before I moved to the U.S.. The country is struggling between Atheism and Islam. Where I lived, I met few Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians but I was too disinterested to understand the theological concepts behind their beliefs. It’s during the hardest time of my life that I became a Christ follower, or at least tried to. Jesus saved me when I rejected him. Jesus was the one who embraced me. Jesus loved me when I was taught to ignore him. Jesus stayed with me and I became more than a simple being: I became a human able to do anything he wants for me because I know that he will do the impossible through my little self.
