"I found myself reading the Gospel of John..."

Another conversion story, wonderful and powerful. Please read it all. As I have noted before, the Gospels are convincing in and of themselves:

Then September 11, 2001, happened. As the towers collapsed, the last bit of respect I felt for Islam collapsed as well. This catapulted me into an all-out search for Truth.

I was laid off from a very good job as the result of the economic fallout of 9-11. As I was online every day searching for jobs, “for some reason” I frequently landed in Christian chatrooms. One day I even found the Bible in Arabic online.

One late wintry night I found myself reading the gospel of John. I never trusted the Bible, and I was taught my whole life that the Bible is corrupt and has been changed. As I started to read I was astonished. As I began reading about Jesus and his beautiful, pure, sinless, holy, amazing, miraculous life I couldn’t stop. I remember reading the whole Gospel from start to finish. I remember that it was early in the morning when I finished reading. I remember that I began to cry so much that I was worried that I might wakeup my wife and I didn’t want her to see me crying so that she won’t ask me why. A few days later, I logged on to my computer and “for some reason” looked for Arabic churches in the area. I then called one and the voice on the other end of the line told me that his dad was the pastor, but he had passed away. He gave me another number to call—a man named Farooq. This man is my current pastor and the person the Lord chose to lead me to himself. We discussed deep issues like Muhammad’s personality, lifestyle, his many marriages and his many wars. Farooq gave me a book he wrote that compares Islam with Christianity, complete with references from the Koran and the Bible.

As I began reading Farooq’s book, I was both shocked and fascinated. I looked up the Biblical and Koranic references—all of which were actually there—and couldn’t believe my eyes! I realized I had been deceived all my life! The main issue that grabbed my attention was the completely different way the two religions treat women.

I can’t pinpoint the exact day on which Farooq led me in a prayer accepting the Lord in my life as my personal Lord and Savior, but it was sometime in early 2002. I do remember the exact day I was baptized. It was the most incredible and scary day of my life! And I have changed so much since I accepted Christ.