∕̴Ɩ Revert Story My Dream Came True Sumayyah bint Joan Angelene McLaren is a journalist who works for a Wisconsin (USA) based Islamic magazine while living in Detroit. A prolific writer & PR woman, Angelene has worked for various magazines & PR firms in the US during the last decade. She recited the Kalima some 6 years ago & took the new name Sumayyah bint Joan. Here she records her encounter with Islam: Ever since I was a little girl, Ive always had a profound relationship with God. Even though I was raised a Catholic, with all its ambiguities, contradictions & confusion, I did my best to stay God-focused & not to give in to the teachings of the Church, because even to me as a child, they seemed to go against the grain somehow. During my high school days, I made a conscious decision to apply myself more thoroughly to my faith. I attended mass twice a day, every day, went to the confessional at least once a week, & did all the ritual practices my priest insisted upon; all in an effort to draw closer to a God. The church failed to me to answer all of lifes most pressing questions; who am I, who & what is God, why am I here, & what should be my relationship with this superior being who created the universe? How am I supposed to live my life? Who is my role model, & how should I follow him or her? Why does God need to have a son now, when He was alone in the creation of all that is, and need no partner or intercessor before? My priest was unable to answer my questions, beyond stating that I should have faith, & that it did not all have to make sense as long as my faith was strong enough. This did not satisfy me, & on finishing high school, I left the church & set out on a quest to find the correct way, belief & religion. I investigated a number of religions in an effort to get rid of this internal emptiness. I practiced Hinduism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism, & in later years even dabbled in White Witchcraft. Now, most people may find this crazy, but you have to understand that I was searching, truly searching, but all these left a void, & just never seemed to fit. Then one day my sister came to see me & what I saw took me by surprise. She entered the house with a very long dress & was covered from head to toe. Her hair was covered by an opaque scarf & came right above her waist. After asking her why she was dressed like that in the middle of summer when its at least 85 degrees outside, she explained to me that she was a Muslim. Now of all the religions I looked into, I never thought of investigating Islam, mainly because there didnt seem to be a lot of information readily available, & because I carried a lot of the Islamic stereotypes in my head, that I now have to deal with in other people. So I left my family & moved to California, still without a religion, or a sound relationship with God. At that point I gave up, & just decided to go with flow, & not worry about it. I did this for 2 years, & although I found l♡ve & got engaged to marry my college sweetheart; something was still missing. In the back of my mind, there was always that nagging voice that kept telling me that my life was out of order, but I would do my best to ignore it, until one fateful night. Right before I was due to leave California, & return to my home state to be with my fiancee & begin building our lives together, I had the scariest dream Ive ever had in my life. In this dream, 2 very tall men dressed in white were standing at the foot of my bed. As I looked at them, I thought they were either aliens or angels, I wasnt sure which, but I was very afraid & was trying my utmost to get away from them, but the harder I tried to get away, the closer to them I got. Eventually, we ended up on top of a very high mountain, with a sea beneath us as red as blood & as hot as lava. The two men pointed & instructed me to look into the sea. What I saw will stay with me until the day I die. The sea was full of naked people, being turned over & over, like meat being roasted over a fire, & they were screaming, Help us, help us! Needless to say, I felt I was getting a fist-hand glimpse of Hell, & I was terrified. I told my fiancee about the dream, & he just laughed & said that I had an overactive imagination, but I couldnt dismiss it so easily. When I returned to Michigan, I found out that my other sister, & my cousin had also embraced Islam during my absence. This made me curious, so I asked my sister to give me some books to read, & one of the first was, Descriptions of the Hell Fire. Everything that was in my dream was in this book. I was floored. So I began reading & reading, & going to lectures & asking questions, &the more I learned about Islam, the more my head & hє∂rt told me that this was what I was looking or all along. I had made up my mind to embrace Islam, but I had one small problem, my fiancee. He was adamant that he was not going to be a Muslim, so I had to choose between the man I l♡ved, & doing what I knew in my hє∂rt was right. Allah (subhanahu wa taala) says that if u say you truly believe in Him & His Messenger (peace be upon him) He will test u, & this was my test. Despite the great amount of pain it caused me at the time, I did choose Islam over my fiancee. That was almost 6 years ago, & اللّه Subhana Taala has since blessed me with a wonderful husband who loves Him &His Messenger sallallaahu alayhi wasallam, & a beautiful son. اللّه Taala says for all who truly want guidance, He will lead them from darkness into light; & I know that is what He did for me !!! سُبْحَانَ اللَّه
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 04:05:53 +0000
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