My Story (Part 1)

It was around the time I was in either 2nd or 3rd grade. My teacher (or maybe it was a guest speaker. My memory is not 100% clear.) told us in class that the most popular name in the world is Muhammad. I thought this was strange as I never knew one person with that name.

I just turned 18 years old. Just graduated from high school and was going out to celebrate with all my friends. Living in Sicily at the time, my friends and I met up with some young Navy guys we recently met to go out with. I soon became very interested in one of them. His name was Muhammad.

After my brief moment with Muhammad, life went on as “normal.” Started college, made friends, dated various guys. . .you know, the “typical” life of a young college girl. At one point I started to become a lot more interested in my own religion at the time, Catholicism. My full inspiration (and even to this day for many things) was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Subhan’Allah, what an amazing woman! It was even her that inspired me to start studying Social Work. Could there be any better Social Worker than one who literally helps others in the name of God? So at this time I was regularly going to church on Sundays, studying towards my degree in Social Work and dreaming of a future.
At one point my panic attacks started kicking in again (in high school I began the exhausting and terrifying journey of having panic disorder). These panic attacks got in my way of going to church and I even had to talk with all my teachers and work out a way for me to complete my courses without physically having to go into a classroom (my panic attacks got worse in such a setting). My heart felt so empty without the weekly services, but I continued to live as Christian-like as I possibly could without actually going to Church. I learned to pray my rosary and supplicated all the time.
New Years 2008 my family and I took a fun trip to Disney World. On this trip I met a man. He was working at Epcot in The World Showcase “Morocco.” He instantly became seriously interested in me. Even after two weeks of talking on the phone he was telling me he loved me and wanted to marry me. In my mind I was a little freaked out, but tried to calm my nerves by telling myself maybe this was just his culture. We also began talking about religion. He told me that God did not like my beliefs as a Catholic. Basically, he implied I would be going to Hell if I continued to believe Jesus was the son of God and God himself. Wait. . .hold on. . .Jesus is God? I never told him I believed that! Honestly, even after being in Church many times never once did I believe Jesus is God. Through reading the Bible this concept makes absolutely no sense. How could anyone believe this? Anyway, I told him I did believe Jesus was the son of God just as we are all the children of God, but never did I believe he was actually God himself.
Fast forward a month or two. This guy has other women on the side! Or maybe I was the side? I don’t know! Honestly, this didn’t surprise me. I had a deep feeling he was only trying to find a woman to marry for green card purposes only. Thank Allah I didn’t fall for this guy as if my life would end without him! Alhamdullilah! Life went on as “normal,” but I continued thinking about what he told me. God wasn’t happy with what I believed as a Christian. What exactly did he believe? What exactly is this Islam?

To be continued. . .