Sister Um Ali

when i was 7 my cousin married a man from Saudi Arabia. He was muslim. My Christian family was not very practicing so i became very interested in the things he did and he answered many questions that i had. he went back to Saudi Arabia when i was 9. at age 10 my parents divorced and i went to live with my grandparents and started attending church regularly.

i had lots of questions because the things he said had stuck with me and i wanted to know why the Baptist church i now was attending believed and did things differently from him . but when i asked questions i was labeled a bad seed and trouble maker. I was told i did not have faith and i needed to pray more. when i was 16 i went to work at a fast food place and met a guy who was from Iraq . he was a refugee. he had been here in the USA for less than a year. we would discuss many things especially religion. we married 4 months later . and he was adamant that i study and if i wanted to become muslim it would be for the right reasons and not because of him. while he was a good muslim. he was not close to all of the things
that make u a true Shia. so i was kind of a muslim in name only. a year after our marriage i had my son and a year later my daughter . i almost died giving birth to my daughter and when we returned home from the hospital i decided to wear hijab. i was 19 yrs old then. I live in a small southern town and at the time was the only hijabi now 7 yrs later there are 4 sisters who wear hijab. I wanted to raise my daughter the right way and i never wanted her to question hijab i often wonder if i had had two sons would i have worn hijab back then or not.. but alhamdulillah i am glad i was given the strength to wear it back then. i feel like i took shahada twice. once at age 17 and once at age 25. at 25 i was divorced and i took it very hard so i dived head first into studying my Islam more and to find out the things i did not know.. my ex never commemorated Moharram . he is deeply opposed to it. so this year was the first time my kids and i could openly and freely practice our Islam . sometimes i feel very ashamed at all the years i wasted as a muslim. but inshallah i am learning now and teaching my kids and inshallah i will make up for lost time inshallah.