I can't call myself a Christian like the majority of the rest of my family, much to their concern, but neither am I completely comfortable calling myself a Muslim like my husband and his family. Not having a single person around you who is comfortable with your beliefs is a very lonely position to be in, but it is important to me that I am true to my heart and what I believe of God, rather than trying to please someone by pretending to believe something I don't. The moment I typed that, it rang false with me, because I'm so afraid of being rejected or given a hard time by K's family that I don't dare tell them how I feel. I suppose it is a lie of omission more than anything else, because I just don't talk about it with them, and let them believe what they will.
Like the Christians and the Muslims both, I believe that there is one true God, and that Jesus is the Messiah who will come back when the time is right. Unlike the Christians, however, I don't believe that Jesus is part of a trinity, making him God. Nor do I believe he is the physical son of God. I believe he is a child of God just as I am. I believe, like the Muslims, that Jesus was a very important prophet and deserving of my respect and attention. I do not believe in the accuracy of the Bible, as the books were written by various men, and chosen to be a part of the Bible as we know it by men. I can not blindly accept that a book written and assembled by men is necessarily everything that God would have us believe or live by. I accept that much of the Bible may be accurate, perhaps even far more than it may be inaccurate, but I still maintain that inaccuracies exist. I have a problem with the dreams accepted as teachings in the Bible. For example, it is made very clear in Leviticus 11:7-8 that eating pork is forbidden. However, many Christians believe this doesn't apply to them because of a dream supposedly had by Peter (Acts 11:4-10) and related by Luke. It doesn't ring true to me that God would lift a ban on all of mankind in this manner. Jews and Muslims still uphold the ban on pork. I'm not claiming to be perfect, here. I've been known to eat pork on rare occasions, but I also feel guilty about it. I have questions about the Quran, too. While I much prefer the idea of a book whose words come directly from God and not from men, we are again relying on a man who was supposedly given the words to recite and memorize. All Muslims would argue many ways to prove that the Quran is accurate and true, but a shadow of a doubt remains for me. I have not read as much of the Quran as I have of the Bible. I'm discouraged by the fact that any English translation of the Quran will tell the reader that to get the full meaning and truth of the Quran, they must read it in its original Arabic. By relying on translations, I'm also relying on interpretations that I might see differently if I could read the Arabic myself. I'm skeptical of some of the things in the Quran about the baby Jesus (that he spoke at birth, especially, though I have no idea why I have a hard time accepting that but no problem accepting that he could raise the dead.) I'm skeptical of their explanation of what happened when Jesus was witnessed dying on the cross. Overall, though, if I have to choose between the books, I accept the Quran more readily than I accept the Bible, though I still refer to the Bible, too. I just rely on my heart (or the presence of God in my heart) in both cases to see something as truth or to see it as something to be wary of. Most recently, I have been pondering John 14:6. "Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father except through me." I think I can accept this in keeping with my own beliefs. I find that where Islam is concerned, I am reluctant to trust anyone to teach me and rely heavily on the English translation of the Quran to guide me. I have found that even among Muslims, there are wide variances in beliefs. Many Muslims have their culture and their traditions mixed up in their versions of Islam, altering it from what it was meant to be. I am occasionally told something by someone with the best of intentions that sounds more like hopeful superstition than true Islam. I am confused by the fact that Islam teaches that the Quran is complete and the only book one needs, yet there are many other books, laws, and teachings that Muslims follow as well. I have tried debating these technicalities with my husband, but where Islam is concerned, his mind is closed to debate. He will defend his beliefs no matter what, and my arguments fall on deaf ears.
At least two members of my family, and probably more, are deeply concerned that I will not be admitted to heaven because of my beliefs. No one knows better than God and I do that there is nothing I want more in this world than to be reunited with my beautiful daughters, Mina and Layla, whom I lost in 2003. I would do absolutely anything God required of me to ensure that reunion. I do not believe that the God I know would ban me from heaven and my daughters on the basis of a technicality or two when He knows how earnestly I want to please him and how desperately I want to know the truth about what to believe. I daresay I have sought the truth harder and more earnestly than many Christians or Muslims who were just brought up in their religion, have accepted it from day one, and have never called anything their parents believed into question.
I sound to myself here like a religious fanatic, a do-gooder who reads the holy books day and night in a quest for knowledge. This isn't so, and I'm as guilty of being human and having faults and shortcomings as the next person. If you know me, you know that already. I go through phases of seeking and praying and thinking endlessly about these things, interspersed with phases of going days without giving these things a thought or a prayer. Despite my trust in my heart and the surety of my beliefs in God, I am still plagued by the occasional fear that I could be wrong and the worry that I may never see my girls again or that there might be nothing after this life. These thoughts are generally fleeting, but they exist, nonetheless. I have never questioned the existence of God, because I see God in the development of an unborn child, in the beauty of flowers and sunsets, in the fickle force of Mother Nature, in our perfect distance from the sun, in our very existence. I do believe in coincidence, but I do not believe that just the right set of a million different circumstances coincidentally brought us to where we are today.
I have a dear friend who may very well read this (assuming he makes it this far without tiring of this subject) who is a self-professed agnostic. I won't debate my beliefs with him, nor argue what I see as the many proofs of God with him, because people will believe what they will believe until they are ready to believe something else. He may never be convinced. I don't think God will ban him from heaven just because he has such a logical mind. I do think that when his time comes, he will be shocked and amazed to finally be able to see what he hasn't been able to see before. My biggest concern for him became clear to me the night I lost my girls. In the midst of my shock and grief, I clearly remember thinking about him, and thinking that it was better that I suffer this loss than for him to suffer the loss of his two boys, because I have the hope of seeing my girls again. For my friend, whether he may see them again or not, he wouldn't believe that he would see them again. To him, they would appear to be lost forever, and I know that I could never have survived my loss without my beliefs. I fear for him if he ever suffers a loss like that, because it will be much harder for him to survive it than it has been for me, and it's been nearly impossible at times, even for me.