kce

Strangely enough, my becoming a Christian did not upset Andrew too
much — I suppose he thought this was better than atheism. But his family
put a lot of pressure on me to become a Muslim: that was the expected
thing for the wife of an Islamic man.
I never did become a Muslim. I explained it to them like this: ‘A
person’s faith is something that cannot be changed, because it comes from
within you, as a part of yourself. If you truly believe in something, how can
you just drop it and then replace it with something else?’ They didn’t like
this, but they gradually came to understand it.
From the time when I became a Christian, right up to the encounter,
my life ran on holy rails! My entire outlook revolved around my
spirituality, and all of my expectations were Christian in nature. I distinctly
recall that when I first saw those strange lights, I was convinced that I had
a direct conversation with God coming my way. But afterwards, I believed
that I’d had a clash with the Devil.
The night that shook my world was 7 August 1993. I was twenty-five
years old. When I eventually remembered what had happened, the
overriding thing I felt was a sense of searing terror. And after that, grief.
Grief because I lost my sense of security, and eventually my husband, as a
result of it. Although Andrew was with me during the encounter, I think
he didn’t cope with it as well as I seem to have done. At first he didn’t deny
what he’d seen, but he claimed to have no conscious recollection of many
of the events that I remembered. As for what he did see, he chose to forget
it. A great deal of strain was placed on our marriage, and by June 1995 we
were divorced.
I also lost my simple Christian faith because it was ultimately
inadequate for explaining what occurred that night. Before we go on with
the story, I want you to understand this about me — I suffered a terrible
trauma as a result of that loss, and the trauma almost undid me.
Only those who’ve had their faith destroyed can understand what a
dreadful experience this is. I still believe in God, but not in the way that I
was taught by orthodox Christianity. My faith is fluid now; it’s no longer
crystallised into a formal religion. I now consider God to be an expression
of life — the seams of the box in which I kept Him have burst, and He’s
now there when I need Him, not just when I am living within the context of
organised religious rules.