Joy Soliman

    I was raised in a Christian home my whole life.  We went to church every Sunday as a family; we even had family Bible studies during the week.  But I never really understand what it meant to be saved, until one day when I was 12 years old. God opened my eyes through a humbling experience.
      When I was 10 years old I started to play on a soccer team. On December 9, 1998. My mom took me to practice that night, the same way she had the last three months. And as always while I was practicing, my mom was getting her workout by walking around the soccer field. Once my team had finished warm up, I kept hearing some of the players talk about my mom. As I looked over, my mom wasn’t walking around the field anymore; she was put into my friend’s car and driven away.  I thought they were going out to eat or something. I didn’t know what was going on, but it never crossed my mind that it could be something serious. A few girls on my team came up with their own theories. Someone told me she got stung by a bee on her neck while another person told me she broke it. I was confused, but not worried. It never even crossed my mind that something bad could happen to my mom.
    That night my brother and I had to go home with my friend’s mom. Because it was the Christmas season we were making a ginger bread house. I was starting to get worried about my mom but all the candy took my mind off of it. My aunt picked us up that night and that’s when I got really worried. She took us home, but no one else was there. I found out my parents were in the hospital, but as scared as I was, I didn’t think anything could happen to my mom. But I was starting to get really scared and kept thinking, what if she really did break her neck?
        When my dad came home that night he didn’t talk to us much, but right before I went to bed I asked him if Mama was ok and he just said yes honey, she’s fine. That’s all it took to take all my worries and fears away, if
Baba said it, then I know my mom was going to be coming home soon. The next day we went to visit her and she looked fine to me, just a little more tired than usual. Many of my family members were there praying for her. That week my family came over a lot, there were people praying for her everywhere, even in Iraq, but I still didn’t understand what was going on. Everyone acted as if she was dying. All I know was that my mom was sick and she was going to feel better, then come back home. Thank God on December 19, 1998 my mom was home! I knew nothing could ever happen to my mom, but the situation was far more complex than I could understand at that time.
    Two years later, my mom was telling me the full story of her recovery.  My mom went to the hospital because she had an aneurism (a vein in her brain burst). All the doctors told her that her only chance she had to survive was to have brain surgery to try to stop the bleeding. But even with that, the chances of survival were extremely slim. My dad saw the x-rays and thought how he could ever tell his children that their mother is going to die. It was the only time I had ever heard that my dad had cried. My mom refused the surgery and was getting ready to be with her Father in Heaven, yet everyone in my family continued with their prayers day and night. A few days
later, to all best doctors’ disbelief, my mom’s bleeding had stopped. It left everyone astounded. No one could understand what had happened, but everyone knew it was God’s hand that touched her. Now my mom is a walking miracle. She is constantly reminded of that experience and has never stopped serving God.  Her enthusiasm for God is continuingly reaching and touching other people’s lives.
     In 2001, I went to a church camp in Riverside.  After an amazing meeting, the pastor asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus Christ into their life to come up.  Then he asked if anyone wanted to come up and pray for someone else’s salvation.  My mom went up, and in my heart I knew she went up for me. That was the first time I realized that I could have been living without my mom.  I could never imagine my life without her.  God gave her a renewed life and I gave Him mine.  That night I went home and accepted Jesus Christ into my life.