Providing Escape from a Life of Fear

Najva contacted us recently from Bosnia, where she now lives. She was pregnant when she wrote us.

“The story of my life,” she began, “is the story of a girl who grew up with fears, got married with fears, and was worried about having a child who was going to enter this cruel and fear-filled world. I always had this question in my mind: God, what will happen to my family in the end?”

Najva was born into a religious family in Iran, but it was a religion of traditions and superstitions. Najva recalled the chaos she always felt growing up in her family’s home.

She tried many ways to find peace and security, including immersing herself in Islam. But that only brought increased fear and anxiety.

“I was always waiting for something bad to happen, and I felt guilty,” she wrote. “Many times, I blamed myself for the bad things in my life.”

Najva’s mother prepared prayers for her imbued with curse and enchantment and insisted Najva take them everywhere she went. But Najva declined because she knew they were of an evil spirit.

“I was looking for the true God and the God of peace,” she said.

Najva married, and she and her husband moved to Bosnia because of what she described as “social problems.” There, they were required to attend church to apply for asylum. They attended a couple of churches, including one to which Najva—then pregnant—had to walk up 62 steps to enter.

But then the coronavirus came, and the churches were closed.

Najva received an invitation to watch Iran Alive’s broadcasts through Zoom. During one of our virtual church services, Najva accepted Christ as her Savior.

“At that very moment, I received the peace and comfort I had been looking for all my lifetime,” she said. “I felt the Spirit of God cast a shadow over me and untie all the knots of my mind. Those vain thoughts and misplaced fears came out of my head, and my mind was cleansed.”

When Najva wrote us, she was eagerly anticipating being baptized when churches could meet in person again. She told us she had dedicated her life to serving God and passing on everything she learned about Him to her family so they could accept Christ’s salvation too.

“Today, with every beat of my heart,” she concluded, “I hear the voice of God. And I know that the child I have in my womb will be comforted only by the whispering of the Holy Spirit. I believe this child will walk on a path that is full of light and mercy—a way in which there is no sign of fear.”