Part Three- The Iranian’s Revolution

It was around 1978, just before everything started to change in Iran. Even as a child, I could feel something was changing, something uneasy in the air, though I didn’t yet have the words to describe it. This was long before the world we know today, before the internet, before information could be freely distributed. We lived by what we were taught, and what we were taught became our truth.

In the evenings, we would sit in front of the television and watch everything on that black and white screen. Crowds in the streets. Voices rising. A kind of chaos that seemed far away, but somehow close enough to reach our home. I had no words for what I was seeing, but I could feel it. Something was changing around us.

And in the midst of it all, something was changing inside me too.

A deep fear had taken root in me, quietly but steadily.

After that, life did not suddenly make sense.

Nothing became easier. If anything, everything became quieter inside me.

I learned not to speak too much. Not to question. Not to expect. I adjusted. That is what people call it. Adjusting. But it did not feel like adjustment. It felt like disappearing.

Days passed. Then months. And somewhere in that time I stopped looking for someone to understand me. Because no one ever did.

I carried everything inside. The anger. The confusion. The hurt I did not even know how to name. And on the outside I became what I needed to be. Quiet enough. Acceptable enough. Invisible enough not to cause more trouble.

But inside there was always something unsettled. A question that never left me.

Is this what life is supposed to be? Is this all there is?

I did not have answers. So I kept living. Growing older but not really growing free.

I made choices. Some I understood, some I did not. Some came from strength, but many came from that same place inside me that had been silenced years before.

And without realizing it, I began walking a path that was leading me somewhere I could not yet see. A path that would eventually break me open.

And then, somehow, lead me home.

I want to pause here for a moment. There is so much more to this part of my life, more details, more people, more pain, more joy, than I can fit into these pages. But this book is not really about me. It is about God, and what He did, and what I witnessed with my own eyes. My life story is simply the road that led me there, But for now, I am keeping to the path, and the path leads somewhere much bigger than I am.

Seen: From Darkness to the Light of Christ

I never intended to write this book.

But some stories aren't meant to stay hidden forever.

If you've ever wondered whether God still sees ordinary people, I hope my journey encourages you.

This is only the beginning.

As I continue writing Seen: From Darkness to the Light of Christ, I'll be sharing stories from my journey, lessons God has taught me, and moments from my art studio that have shaped both my faith and my work.

Thank you for being here. I hope you'll walk this journey with me as each new chapter unfolds.

Continue reading Seen: Part 2

Part one- Childhood

Sharing these parts of myself is not easy. It requires me to be vulnerable and open about things I have carried quietly for many years. But if I am going to tell my story honestly, I need to begin with the person I was before these experiences happened.

You need to know my background, my struggles, my strengths, and the parts of myself that I did not always understand. Because my story is not only about what God did for me; it is also about who I was when He found me.

Let me tell you something about myself: there were areas of life that I was slow to understand. I know that may sound strange, because I believe God has given me intelligence and many talents, and I say that with humility, not pride.

If you showed me something, I could immediately understand it and recreate it with my own hands. I have always had the ability to see, learn, and create. Throughout my life, I have taught myself many skills, discovering new talents along the way and using the gifts God placed inside me.

But when it came to understanding people, God, my surroundings, and even reading the room, it often felt like my mind worked differently, as if I was somehow behind. Sometimes it almost felt like I came into this world ready to argue with others. For many years, I struggled with this part of myself. I was afraid of being judged, yet there were times when I was also quick to judge others.

But God has been changing my heart. Through the Holy Spirit, He has been teaching me patience, compassion, and humility. He reminds me that we are all human, all imperfect, and all in need of grace. Who am I to judge someone else when I know my own weaknesses and the things God has forgiven me for?

The more I have experienced God's mercy, the more I have learned to extend that same mercy to others.That is why I kept these experiences locked inside me for so many years. I was afraid that if people read what had happened, they would not believe me. I worried they would think I had lost my mind or that my imagination had taken over. I was afraid of what they would say.

I did share my story a few times over the years. Some people were moved and amazed. Others told me plainly that I had imagined the whole thing. Each time, that old fear returned and closed around me again.

But today, I have finally set that fear aside. I asked God to give me the strength to write this for those who need to read it and know that even in the 21st century, God still hears, still sees, and still answers.

These things happened, and I am writing them down one by one in this book. Every word is the truth.

There were times when, even with my fear of being judged, I would quietly ask God, “Why?” Why have You shown me so many miracles in my life? I am getting older now, and sometimes I feel I have not done enough with what You have given me.

I know that perhaps some of these miracles were meant only for me. But God, I want others to know what You have done. I want them to know how great and powerful You are, and at the same time, how close, how warm, and how gentle You are.

You saw me. Me, of all people. A woman who was at war with herself. I often felt like I was nothing remarkable. I saw myself as ordinary, and in some areas I felt far below what others could do.I have never felt that speaking was my strongest gift. Finding the right words in front of others has not always come easily to me. But God gave me another way to express what was in my heart. He gave me the ability to write, to put my feelings onto paper, and to share the things I could not always say out loud. For that, I am deeply grateful.

Because this book is focused on my testimony of faith, I will not go into the details of my personal life here. That story deserves its own space and will be written separately. What matters in these pages is what God did in my life and how He found me.

Today, my heart tells me that these words may reach women who feel, as I once did, unseen. Perhaps there are men who carry that same feeling too. This story is for you.

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Part one-A Little Girl Searching for God

My mother was eighteen when she married my father. She was in love with him, and he loved her deeply in return. Because of his work, he took her away to another city, and over the years they moved more than once, following wherever his job led them.

My Grandma (father's mother) was getting old and frail, and she had high blood pressure and diabetes. My father, not wanting my mother to be lonely and not wanting his own mother to be alone either, brought her to live with them. My mother had enormous respect for her mother in law and was always a little shy around her, always careful, always proper.

My mother became pregnant with her first child not long after they married. When the labor pains began, my father was not home. And my mother, too shy to say anything in front of her mother in law, said nothing. She lay there in silence, bearing it alone, hour after hour, all the way to the middle of the night. Until she simply could not hold on any longer.

It was my old grandmother who finally understood what was happening. She went out into the street in the middle of the night and knocked on the door of a midwife, practically dragging her back to the house. But the baby came out feet first. The midwife did everything she could. But the baby did not survive.

They had chosen the name Hooshang for him.

For years afterward, that night quietly ate away at my mother. If only she had not been so shy. If only she had said something. If only she had gone to a hospital. She carried that with her for a long time. I think for rest of her life.

My mother used to tell us about Hooshang. She had only seen him for half an hour. But she always talked about him, and she always cried.

A year and a half later, I arrived. A girl. Small, thin, weak, with big eyes and straight hair. Not exactly the grand entrance anyone was hoping for.

For the first three years of my life, according to my mother, I was almost always sick. In and out of hospital, lying with my face toward Mecca, somewhere between staying and going. Nobody was very confident I would make it.

The only thing that kept any food in my stomach, apparently, was the tea my grandma would give me from a little bottle, sweetened with sugar, coaxing me gently back toward life.

My father was a traditional Persian man, old fashioned in the way that men of his generation were. He loved my mother deeply, truly he did, but in his world love came with a certain arrangement. He was the head of the house and my mother was expected to follow his lead. And she did, mostly. That was simply how things were.

Every morning he went to work and every evening he came back, and somewhere in that routine the same question would find its way out of him. He would look at my mother, almost smiling, and say, so, is she still alive? Half joking. Half absolutely not joking. And then he would smile as if it were nothing.

But it was not nothing.

When someone is that afraid of losing you, they don't always know how to love you fully. And he didn't. Not completely. Not me.

Fourteen months after me came a boy. Then another. Then another. Then a girl, a boy, a girl, a boy. After me she had three boys, and I noticed. Children always notice these things.

I never really knew what it felt like to be loved by him. It was fear, dressed up in words that tried to sound light.

Part Two-A Little Girl Searching for God

I was born on the first day of spring. Nowruz. If you are Iranian you know exactly what that means. The biggest day of the year. Everything feels fresh and new, families visit each other, children get money in little envelopes, there is food and laughter everywhere.

And every single year, my birthday quietly disappeared into all of it. Just another Nowruz. No cake with my name on it, no happy birthday, nothing that said this day is yours.

Until I was nine.

That morning my mother called me over and something about her face was different. She had a gift, wrapped in paper with a red ribbon. For me. Actually for me.

Now I want to be clear, my mother had given me things before. She was not a cold woman. But there is a difference between being given something and being given a gift. A real gift. Something wrapped up that says I thought of you, this is yours, happy birthday.

Inside the paper was a white Chador, the traditional Hejab, Soft, with little flowers on it. My size. Made for me.

Finally, I felt seen by her.

And then she sat beside me and began to talk to me about God. She had said these things to me before but that morning it felt different, more serious, like she really needed me to hold onto what she was saying.

She said : God made the sky. God made the earth. God made you. And He always sees you.

Then she gently wrapped the chador around my head and shoulders. I sat very still. I did not want to get it wrong. She placed a small clay seal on the ground in front of us. I had seen it before but now it felt important, like I had just been let into something that mattered.

Now we will pray together, she said. Just repeat after me.

I sat up straight. I was ready.

We started, and I followed her every move and every word as carefully as I could. But even as I repeated the words, questions were quietly forming inside me. I did not understand any of this Arabic. What did these words actually mean? And if God had truly made me, if He could see me at any moment of any day, why couldn't He just understand my own language? Why did I have to speak to Him in words that meant nothing to me? Why couldn't I talk to Him in Farsi, the language I thought in, the language of my heart? I looked at my mother and asked, mama, why are we speaking in Arabic? You always say God made me, so why doesn't He understand Persian?

She smiled, but her voice was serious. This is how we learned it, she said, and this is how my mother taught me, and her mother before her. We don't ask questions. And neither should you. Just do what I tell you.

After my ninth birthday, my mother started waking me up before sunrise every morning to pray. It was now my duty. I was nine years old, a girl, and this was simply what was expected.

But I had a problem.

When I slept, I really slept. Waking me up was like trying to pull someone out of the bottom of a deep dark ocean. My mother would shake me, call my name, pull the blanket clean off me. And I would try, I genuinely tried, to open my eyes before the sun came up.

But most mornings, I just couldn't do it.

And with every missed prayer, the guilt would settle a little deeper. I had already been asking myself why I had to pray in Arabic. Now I wasn't even managing to wake up for it. Was I a bad girl? Was God angry with me? Was the God my mother loved so completely, disappointed in me? I didn't know. I was nine years old and I was trying to reach a God who felt very far away.

And it wasn't just the prayers.

I was the eldest daughter, which came with its own set of unwritten rules. While my mother took care of the younger ones or cooked, I cleaned the house. I did my homework. I helped with the children. I was expected to be responsible, to be helpful, to be good. And on top of all of that, I was expected to understand God, to pray in a language I didn't understand, and also learn how to “fast”.

Because when the month of fasting came, I had to fast. Full fast. From before sunrise to sunset, no food, no water, nothing. Twelve hours of hunger and thirst, sometimes in scorching heat. My brothers didn't have to fast until they were fifteen. But me? I was nine.

Nobody asked me how I felt about any of this. Nobody asked me what I needed. I was just expected to carry it all, quietly and without complaint, the way good girls do. The way my cousins were doing it most of them were a few years older than me.

But my father, in one way at least, was different from most men in our large Families. He loved learning. He loved books. He was curious about the world in a way that not many people around us were, and he believed his children should be educated.

He carried an open mind about education and growth in a place where most men did not. My father never had the chance to continue his education beyond the eighth grade.

And maybe that was exactly why it meant so much to him. He wanted more for us.

More knowledge. More understanding. More opportunities. He had a tough childhood and was determined that we wouldn't suffer like he did. He worked hard to create a safe environment for us. He wanted us to have everything. Good schools, good clothes, good food, two vacations a year. But more than that, he wanted us to be prepared for life. He taught us all to drive. When we were twelve or thirteen, every kid had to learn. He taught us all about survival, independence, and taking care of ourselves. I didn't understand it then, but I do now. He was sick. He knew his body was failing. He knew he might not be there to protect us forever. So he prepared us. He made sure that if something happened to him, we would know how to survive. Apparently, his father died when my father was only 6 months old. That's why they had a very tough childhood. He had to learn how to survive without his father, then he had to go back to his mother and take care of her too. And that's why he gave us the tools to be strong. I know now after having a counselor for 3 years and talking to her sometimes twice a month that I was a rebellious child ….

To be continued ….