find church boring? hmm... re:generationchurch.co.uk

A lot of people tried to talk to me about God, my mum especially, but I didn’t want to hear any of it. I always asked myself why they thought I would like to know someone who hates me and ignores my prayers. So I surrounded myself with people who agreed with me, people who believed God was a figment of some poor guy’s imagination that just got taken seriously, people that believed that Christianity was for those who needed to be told what to do and how to live their lives. I was convinced. I believed I had to live for the moment: live hard, die young. I was hardly ever at home, I couldn’t stand to be around my family – why would they need me? I had been through so much and didn’t want any reminder of it all: of my dad, who didn’t want to hear the word Jesus (he was Muslim, but not practicing), who didn’t believe girls had the right to an education and who had already planned out my life for me. Go to Lebanon and marry my cousin at aged 12. You can only imagine how frustrated my mother was. So she did what any other woman in her position would’ve done. She left him, but not without a fight. It was long and hard and I was angry about it all. Why had God given me a father like that? If He truly loved me why would He let the people I loved get hurt so much?

So I took it all out on my family: it started gradually, with complaining about having to go to church with my mum, then on to making up excuses, and then downright refusing to go to church. I became this other person. At home (when I was forced to be there) I was moody and made it blatantly obvious that I didn’t want to be there, and when I went out I was happier. I got into a lot of trouble with my mum and our relationship got so bad that we even stopped talking for a while. Sometimes I would go out for three days straight and not call and/or answer my phone and she would be worried sick. My mum has sickle cell anaemia, which is a genetic blood disease so she gets ill really easily. My behaviour did not help at all.

I first came across re:generation Church when my family moved to Gidea Park. My mum walked past it and said “Oh that’s very convenient. So we can go to church on Sunday”. She didn’t get to go for the next three weeks but then she decided one week that we had to go. I made up about seven different excuses why I couldn’t go that week and so my mum gave up, not in the mood for an argument.

When she got back she couldn’t stop talking about it and how nice it was. And then she said to me “Iman I can promise you that if you go to this church you would enjoy it very much. Besides, it’s aimed more at you than me.” I laughed. My mum was always “prophesying” I didn’t want to go partly because I was afraid she was right. My mum hardly said things like that and when she did, she was never wrong - and I mean NEVER! So the next weekend I asked my best friend to come along to the service. I hoped her “atheist side” would keep me in tune with reality (she has a sort of ‘pick and mix’ faith). I had made up my mind that I would go to please my mum, prove her wrong and in turn she would not try to make me go to church ever again.

I had my routine worked out. I’ll go, then tell mum it was as rubbish as I had expected, then I’ll tell all my friends what my mum tried to do and have a good laugh about it all. So I went that Sunday. As I got to the entrance I was shocked at the amount of young people I saw there. I was used to church having an adult and elderly crowd with maybe a few teenagers who’d been forced and some toddlers. That was just the beginning of it. And then I noticed how friendly everyone was. I didn’t remember anyone ever being sincerely interested in knowing who you were at church. I tried to keep my focus on why I was there, which was to prove my mum wrong; being interested in re:generation wasn’t part of that plan.

The service started and found myself thinking ‘well this isn’t too bad’. Well after the worship, Eleanor gave a testimony which really touched me. I felt like we had similar experiences yet she was somehow able to just let go and forgive and be happy. I just found that very hard to believe. Why couldn’t I be as free as she was? Didn’t I deserve some happiness too? My friend tried talking to me because she could see I was being disarmed, but I had no control. I started crying and laughing and I really felt a sudden urge to talk to Eleanor. I went over to her and introduced myself and I found myself blurting out my entire life to this complete stranger who seemed to understand me very well. I found it very strange. She prayed for me and I agreed to come again the next week.

When I got home and told my mum everything that happened she laughed so much and I realised she was once again right. But I didn’t care; I really wanted to know more about how Christianity would affect my life. The next week I went again and although I wasn’t very sure if I wanted Jesus as part of my life, I found the message really encouraging and decided to start making changes in my life. I really felt like I had to let go of some things to be able to make room for God. I told my friends I was going to church now, I was ridiculed and they came to the conclusion that I must be having some sort of break down so they “disowned” me without actually mentioning that they had. Their actions spoke very clearly, we stayed in touch but it wasn’t wholehearted. I didn’t really mind, I knew what I needed first and I could worry about everything else later. A week or two later there was a guest speaker at re:generation – it was a minister and his wife who said that anyone who needed prayer for anything at all should come forward during the worship. I felt the urge to go forward but was very hesitant at first, but then I decided to just go out and talk to her – after all, what was the worst that could happen?

I told her how I felt and everything that I had been through and she said she could sense I had bottled it all up and I needed to let go of it and give it all to God. I said a little prayer that God would open up my heart and make me receptive of the Spirit. As she began to pray for me, she said I should search deep within me for the source of all this hurt. I closed my eyes and searched my heart for a second and had a picture of myself with my dad and all of a sudden it was like a dam had burst, like someone turned on the tap and broke the handle. I couldn’t stop, I felt so much pain and I couldn’t control my emotions. I cried for what seemed like hours and I felt so weak. I felt so light, so free, like I could finally breathe. The sort of feeling you get when you inhale after having your head submerged in water. It felt beautiful – too bad it didn’t look pretty because I had snot and mascara everywhere! That for me was the day I truly felt that the Lord did indeed love me. He had lifted that burden I’d carried for years. I still felt like it was just the beginning. He had cleaned my slate, yes, but now I had to trust Him to keep it that way and I knew that I still had a lot to learn. So I committed myself to God, I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour.

Some people think that life automatically becomes easier once you become Christian. If anything it makes it harder, but so much more worth living. God wants so much to take away our pain. Strange isn’t it? First I don’t believe then all of a sudden I’m even more certain about God’s love than some people who have believed in Him their whole lives. When the Lord reveals Himself to you, it is the most overwhelming feeling you will ever feel. Better than any ‘high’ you could ever get. Once you’ve had a taste of this ‘high’ you just want more and more.

Over the next few weeks people started to comment on how much I’d changed. I didn’t feel anything really different at first, I felt like I had always been the way I am now. I felt like I have always loved God and been proud of that fact. I sometimes look back now and think to myself ‘why did I wait so long to accept Christ?’ I had the opportunity so many times, but the Lord had such amazing timing. Some of my problems are yet to be resolved, but now I know how to work on them and who to trust and give up everything to. I even have other worries, but I know that God never deserts us, He knows everything, He loves us all and when the time is right, no matter how it seems, He will deliver us from it all. I thank Him every day and night, for loving me, showing me mercy when I felt I really didn’t deserve it, for guiding and protecting me, and for whatever He has planned for my future.

Now my behaviour has improved, my mum and I have rebuilt the trust I lost, my relationship with my siblings has improved also, and I no longer hate my dad. I've forgiven him. I’ve forgiven him and pray for him all the time. Now my friends ask me what’s changed. What’s made you so different?’ and I always answer ‘I am a Christian, I have a relationship with Christ, I live by His example’ and the conversation moves towards who Jesus was and why I should care about Him or how He lived. Every day I learn something new, constantly growing, and I can truly say that despite all these things I’m worried about, college, work et cetera, I have never been more at peace or happy. I just pray that others can find God as I have done, because He truly does affect everything in your life - life now means much more than just living for the sake of it.