My name is Khadia, I am French of Senegalese Soninke origin. I spent my childhood in Seine et Marne with my parents.
Coming from a Muslim family, I lived in a polygamous environment. I had a very difficult and abusive relationship with my mother and a stepmother (my father's 2nd wife) who didn't love me at all. I always felt different and misunderstood. Always on the fringes of this family.
I was experiencing indescribable discomfort to the point where I took very serious action to put an end to this suffering.
However, since I was young I experienced "strange" things, I asked myself a lot of questions about Allah (what he was like, what he was doing while we were all living as human beings on earth).
My father had enrolled us in the Koranic school provided by a gentleman from our Senegalese community. I remember that I learned my lessons well because I loved Allah and wanted to please him and I also learned my surahs by heart. The lessons stopped abruptly because we complained to my father about the violence of the teacher. Indeed, my father could not stand being hit. It was a real liberation, but I still learned 5 surahs and prayed with them.
At the age of 6 or 7, when I was in CP, I had a friend named Nathalie, I played with her all the time and were inseparable. One Saturday morning, while we were in the playground, I asked my friend to come to my house as we often did. Nathalie told me that she couldn't because she had to get her hair done by her mother because she had to go to church to see Jesus.
Jesus, who is this one I asked myself? I remember a feeling of jealousy that rose in my heart. I told myself that it was a friend who was taking my place. I asked her if I could come there with her. After school, I went home and asked my mother without knowing that what I was asking was serious and an abomination. She scolded me and slapped me and told me that it was kharame to say that here and that I was good for nothing even those kinds of words came out of my mouth. From my young age, I wanted to die because for me now I was unforgivable in the eyes of Allah.
I remember doing my ablutions and saying my prayers as usual but I was crying and begging Allah to forgive me, especially since I will never say again that I am going to church and that I do not know Jesus that I did not know that it was forbidden among us (Muslims). I was very confused and I was afraid of dying with this sin.
That night, I had a dream and saw someone in human form and full of light, I didn't see a face but I heard him talking to me. He asked me to follow him and took me to the foot of our building where I saw a staircase that went up to the sky. I was suspended and climbed like him. When we arrived at the top, I saw people like reflections all in bright white and a loud voice said "Here is the church..."
I remember this dream as if I had it today after 40 years.
I never understood it until I was converted.
During my adolescence, I always lived with this increasingly pronounced malaise and often attempted suicide because I could no longer bear to suffer and especially to be misunderstood… I ended up after each attempt telling myself that whatever happened I would go to hell since I could not go a day without sinning and that Allah did not care since he could replace me as he wanted. I found him perverse and mean. I always sought comfort, I had my friends and Christians around me, I frequented a friend of Jehovah's Witness confession who had given me an illustrated book of biblical history, I liked this book very much and felt loved by God. This book reassured me and I could read it over and over again because it made me feel so good. To the point where at home, we called it "the book of Khadia", this book is still with me today.
My life really changed in high school, in the second year to be precise, I was in a class where there was a young girl like me. Her name was Annick, I saw her at every break in the study hall reading, I didn't understand her, she really intrigued me. I wondered why she isolated herself all by herself instead of being with us in a group.
One day, I joined her in the duty room and asked her out of curiosity what she was doing, she answered me gently and with a smile that she was reading the Bible and there I opened the series of questions (what are you reading?...) when she answered me that she was reading the Bible then I immediately answered her that the Bible was falsified and that there were only lies in it, in the process, I asked her what exactly she was reading and she told me that she was reading the story of Abraham and there surprised I said to her but how? Abraham exists in the Bible?
She answers me in the affirmative and quotes me other names of prophets with their Koranic names. I am overcome with emotion and especially confusion. I begin to have since that day a nameless thirst and cling to her. I learn, ask her questions, and ask myself some too. Everything is upside down in my head, I want to know more about
Jesus Christ. One day, in the playground, Annick prays for me, I have my eyes closed and I see this light from years ago (remember my dream). I am overwhelmed with love and start to cry. I ask Annick how I can get baptized because I wanted to do it without delay the same day after school but she reassured me that she would take me to church to see a servant of God.
A few days after this miracle, we went to a church but the door was closed, I felt a deep sadness but Annick reassured me with so much love and told me that that day would happen and that it would even be a celebration for me in Heaven.
However, I was baptized 4 years later, I understood that it was a time when the Lord wanted to make himself known to me more. My Yes for Jesus Christ was final.
I live in His Love, His indescribable peace, despite being the only Christian in my family and I no longer hide it, which was not the case at the beginning. Jesus Christ is my Savior and Lord. YESHUA HA MASSIAH of my heart
Blog testimonial written by Khadia. K
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