When you play “Duck! Duck! Goose!!” with the police, you have a problem – Part One
by Sometimes when life seems to nail you to wall and gives you an acid shower with a brillo pad scrubbie, you can’t see your way clear. Your emotions are clouded, and you fall into the dangerous trap of suicide.
A few weeks ago, my friend’s thirteen year-old daughter experienced something she never should have been exposed to: suicide. She had exchanged words with a twelve year-old classmate, and the next day, the little girl was found dead, hanging from the bar in her closet. My friend’s daughter went to the funeral, as did most of her classmates, but she is left with having to cope with a subject even adults grasp to make sense out of. It is for these two children and the prodding of my friends that I’ll write of my own experience with this subject.
A couple of years ago, I had made the mistake of becoming romantically involved with someone I knew was a poor match for me. He was the stereotypical Arab man you see in the movies – hard headed, harsh, selfish and short tempered. Although he never hit me with his fists, the mental abuse through manipulation and constant head games left bruises no one could see. In an attempt to please him, I was being systematically stripped of who and what I was: culture, family, freedom, and Western dress. I held onto two things stubbornly: my passport, and my religion. The tighter I held onto these things, the worse it became for me; I felt so mentally ground up and beat down, I agreed to give up my passport.
In Islam, a man is to present his future wife with a dowry. In his brand of Islam, I was give him a dowry. He felt since he was giving up his right to a virgin (I had been previously married), he required a stiff level of compensation. In the end, his idea of compensation would’ve been a furnished house in Amman, plus a new car and cash. I never felt comfortable with this because I knew divorce in Islam is relatively easy and quick. What would stop him from marrying me, purchasing a home and vehicle, divorcing me, taking all the assets and then promptly marrying a virgin? He would have everything to attract a woman from a wealthy family, and I would be penniless in a capitol city.
He wanted a Muslim wife and wasn’t going to stop at anything until he obtained my conversion. I was tormented until I said, “ok, I will convert”, but under my breath I begged for God to forgive me because I knew Jesus was, is, and always will be the only path to salvation.
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