My Muslim friend wept, unrestrained, yet embarrassed that she had let herself express such strong emotion to her Christian friend. I touched her on the arm.“ It doesn’ t feel good when a person condemns our faith, does it? God is the one who judges the heart,” I reassured.“ He knows our relationship with him.”
My friend didn’ t need me to join with the rest of the onslaughts against her Muslim faith. She needed a nonjudgmental listener. With the news reports concentrating on Muslim extremists, locations of mosques, and Israeli and Arab land rights, my friend felt attacked. I needed to show her how kind and loving our God is, someone who is deeply interested in our welfare.
For nearly a decade, I have been a friend to the“ head-scarf lady.” We’ ve discussed the beliefs of our different faiths over countless cups of tea. I have communicated the Gospel from every angle, consistently bringing Jesus as the only Savior into our conversations.
It all started in my kids’ school carpool line. I noticed a woman with a headscarf.“ She’ d be an interesting lady to get to know,” I thought. So, each day as I sat in line, I prayed for her. Just general prayers, like:“ Jesus, would you draw her to you?”
The time came for our son’ s fifth birthday.“ Nico,” I said one day,“ You can choose a couple of friends and invite them home for cake and ice cream. The mummies can come too, and we can chat and drink coffee.”
Nico invited two little boys. One was an American boy and the other was Middle Eastern. Nico said,“ You know his mother. The lady with the scarf!” I was overjoyed. God had heard my prayer. I was to be a part of the answer.
For nine years we have met for tea and conversation. We have visited second-hand clothing stores and international food markets, eaten Libyan and Indian food with our families, and enjoyed a Middle Eastern festival. My friend Raima * has also attended some of my Bible studies and special women’ s outreach dinners at church. All along, my heart has yearned for her to come to Christ.
One day, we were driving to a store across town. Raima had brought her husband’ s GPS. She excitedly told me about the“ recalculate” feature that rerouted us if we got lost.“ It’ s wonderful,” she said to me.“ If we make a wrong turn, it just recalculates and sets us on the right course again.”
God’ s Spirit spoke to me.“ Hey, that’ s just like God. If we make a poor choice and are heading in the wrong direction, we ask his forgiveness, and he lovingly reroutes our lives back in the right direction.”
On another occasion, my kids and I were driving home from a play date at my friend’ s house. My then eight-year-old Maddy had sat beside me for most of the visit, listening to the interaction between my friend and me. She piped up from the back seat and said,“ Mummy, Raima thinks that her god and our God are the same, doesn’ t she?”
“ Yes, darling,” I said, and before I could clarify, my little girl added,“ but that is not for us to tell her, is it? It’ s for God to tell her.”
How I pray that God will draw Raima’ s heart to his. That is his job. I’ ve prayed with my friend on numerous occasions. Several times, I have seen tears at the close of the prayer. Pray for my friend as she hears about the love of God as we drink tea in our homes. Pray that she will read the bilingual Bible I gave her, that she will respond to God’ s love, and that she will come to believe that Jesus really is the only Savior.
* Name changed for security reasons.
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