Behind the Veils of Yemen Page 14

  Help my baby! I screamed silently at God. Please make this stop! Why are You letting this happen to her? Why?

  I continued to rock my daughter, singing softly until she relaxed in my arms and fell back asleep against my shoulder. She shuddered once and sighed as Kevin helped me lay her gently back in her bed. She rolled to her side, drifting deep into sleep. Kevin tucked her comforter around her shoulders, bending down to kiss her forehead. Barefoot on the cold tile floor, I shivered.

  “You need to get under the covers,” he whispered, turning out the light. “I don’t want you to get sick, too.”

  I followed Kevin into our bedroom. “What if something’s really wrong?” I asked. “This is getting worse. I don’t like this tingling in her spine. I’m worried, Kevin.”

  Kevin nodded. “Me, too.” He climbed into bed beside me. “We’re going to have to trust God and try to find better help.”

  I nodded, but inwardly I was screaming at God. I do trust You! Why are You letting this happen? Haven’t we been through enough? Why, Lord? Why? And I tossed in anger, wrestling my pillow until dawn streaked light into the inky black of the night.

  We saw the only neurologist in Yemen. He introduced himself to us in his Sana’a hospital suite and then hooked Madison to an ancient EEG machine. He shook his head, clicking his tongue as he taped each lode to her head.

  “I am sorry about this equipment,” he said in perfect English. “It is outdated and almost useless. In Iraq we had better than this.”

  “Iraq?” I asked, stunned.

  “Yes, I am from Iraq.” He was busy over Madison’s head.

  I swallowed and looked warily at Kevin, who had raised his eyebrows. Memories of the wars loomed. The only neurologist in Yemen and he’s Iraqi, I thought to myself.

  The doctor sensed our discomfort. “I am grateful for America,” he said, attaching the last electrode to Madison’s head. “They helped our country get rid of a madman. Now people like me who had to leave or be killed can go home.” We nodded, quietly exhaling relief.

  “Cool hairdo.” I smiled at Madison, gesturing at the electrodes sticking out all over her head.

  “You can probably talk to Mars,” Kevin teased.

  “Daddy!” Madison’s worried eyes began to smile.

  The neurologist told us that the EEG revealed an abnormality in the left temporal lobe of Madison’s brain. He could not tell us what the abnormality was, but he recommended that an MRI be performed in a place with more adequate health care. He suggested that there might be a lesion. He apologized again for his primitive equipment and gave us the EEG printout.

  We reported the neurologist’s recommendation to the medical director at our IMB headquarters in Richmond. A regional meeting scheduled in Cyprus was twelve days away. The medical director recommended that we take Madison to a neurologist there. The appointments were arranged for us. We braced ourselves for the possibility of a tumor in Madison’s central nervous system and pondered what that would mean to her eight-year-old life.

  As we waited for the appointments in Cyprus, I barricaded myself inside our home. I battened down our doors and closed my family inside, shutting everyone else out. I felt like we were bobbing on hostile waters, caught in a storm that raged during the night and seethed during the day. The rage of the storm thundered in every tearful whimper as Madison’s tingling continued. But the eye of the storm cracked like lightning inside my seething heart. I was angry with God.

  In quiet times alone, I sipped my tea and screamed at God. Why? How could You let this happen? Why?

  In every chore I absently performed, I ranted. I trusted You, Lord! Haven’t we been through enough?

  In the dark of endless nights, I sobbed uncontrollably. She’s my little girl, Father. Please don’t take her away.

  And I flipped through the pages of my Bible looking for the explanation I continually demanded from God.

  I avoided my colleagues and I quit language study to stay home with my children. I declined Fatima’s invitations to visit friends, explaining that Madison was ill and we would be leaving for medical care.

  “Ma’a sha’allah.” Fatima whispered. “Ensha’allah Madison will be well soon, and she will be healthy and strong.”

  “Ensha’allah [God willing],” I responded.

  I wanted to see Fatima; I missed her. But I did not want Fatima to see my anger toward God. I did not want to jeopardize the seeds I had planted in her life.

  I tried to focus on the Christmas holidays. I overdecorated the house with trimmings from our crates. I played carols and sang them with the children, sounding out a joy I did not feel. I decorated cookies with the children and made paper chains. I played on the floor with Madison and her stuffed animals. I wondered if this Christmas would be her last one with us.

  When the day finally arrived, we left eagerly for Cyprus. We flew into Nicocea and took a charter bus to our hotel. Madison’s neurological appointments were scheduled for the third day of the conference. We were expected to participate until then. I read the schedule with reluctance. I was disinterested and wanted to skip the sessions and wander the rocky seacoast at the hotel’s edge. I went involuntarily to each session smiling at others, but I was not interested in their introductions or in giving my own.

  Each morning I met with the prayer group I had been assigned and listened to the women share their needs. I prayed along with them. I told them about Madison and asked them to pray, but I would not reveal my own need for prayer. My hurt was raw and deep, and I would not share it with those who could condemn what they might not understand.

  I went through the first day of the conference and into the second, stealing away to the beach during an afternoon break. Salt spray stung my face as waves crashed on the rocks at my feet. Navy blue sea stretched beyond me until it became sky on the horizon. I searched for boats far away, looking for those floundering in the endless blue, caught in waters too deep and dark to navigate. I shivered. The salty wind was sharp and brisk, biting through my thin jacket like a cold, steel blade. I glanced at my watch and trudged back to the conference hall for the evening program.

  It had already started. I was late again. Every row in the auditorium was filled with singing people. I searched for the top of Kevin’s balding head. I pushed my way through smiling faces to slip in beside him.

  “Where have you been?” Kevin whispered, clapping his hands to the beat of the praise song in motion.

  “Down at the beach,” I mumbled.

  Kevin nodded and continued singing, turning back toward the stage. I moved my mouth, but I had trouble singing the words.

  The keynote speaker delivered a message on trusting God. I sighed, listening with halfhearted interest. Then the speaker told a story. He described a missionary who had spent her life ministering to the needs of an African tribe. She had given her life to loving and living among the people. But a war broke out, and she was caught between warring tribes. She was taken captive, beaten and raped repeatedly by the very people she had come to serve. From the midst of the horror, she cried out to God, asking why He would let this happen to her.

  The speaker shared the clear voice of God’s reply. “Do you trust Me enough without having to know why?”

  I sat forward in my seat. The room around me seemed to become distant and dim. Faces faded away, and all sound seemed to stop as the question shot toward me like an arrow. It hit clean, straight between my eyes, piercing my soul like a firebrand.

  Do you trust Me enough without having to know why?

  My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed. The speaker moved on, but I could not. Time had stopped for me. I knew God had asked me the question. It was as if He had drawn a line in the sand, and I had to make a choice. I had to choose whether to cross that line and trust Him completely or stay where I was and struggle through what I did not understand with anger and resentment.

  The room was cold, but sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I glanced at Kevin, who was focused on the stage as the s
peaker wrapped up his message and the pianist moved forward to play. I watched Kevin, seeing him not in his seat but in a hospital bed in Virginia. I remembered the long hours I had spent with Jesus over him. I remembered His sufficiency when nothing else, including me, had been enough.

  I thought about Yemen. I remembered my doubts months earlier when I had struggled with the difference between what I believed and what others believed in their religion. God had resolved my doubts and definitively answered my question.

  Now He was waiting for me to answer His. Do you trust Me enough without having to know why?

  Tears began to fill my eyes. God had always been faithful to me, even when I had been unfaithful to Him. He had always been who He said He is; He had never been less.

  I lifted my face toward the ceiling, and the tears spilled out, pouring down my cheeks. Lord, I prayed. I trust You. You are worthy of my trust, and I will trust You no matter what. Even when I don’t understand why something happens.

  The storm within me ceased. The sun broke through like a clear morning after a night of tornadoes. I crossed over God’s line in the sand, stepping across with my heart locked on Jesus. I felt like Peter stepping out of a manmade boat to walk on water with the Master.

  I joined Kevin and the rest of the auditorium in the final song. I knew days would come when my focus would shift to the water and what lay underneath. I knew I would probably sink in it, as Peter did. But I knew Jesus would be enough to pull me up and set me walking again.

  The next morning my prayer leader studied my face as I joined our small group. “You look happy. Something has changed.” Her eyes searched mine. “Did you get Madison’s test results back?”

  “Not yet.” I pulled my chair closer to the center of the group. Our group of five was one of several groups meeting in the hotel lobby. I spoke softly. “I crossed the line.”

  The leader’s eyes grew wary. “What kind of line?”

  “The line of trust.” I looked around at the women and took a deep breath. “I thought I trusted God completely. But God showed me that I had put limits on my trust. He wants me to trust Him not only when things make sense but also when they don’t. He drew a line in the sand between how I trust Him and how He wants me to trust Him. He asked me to cross it, and I did.”

  The prayer leader’s eyes studied mine. “What does that mean about Madison?”

  I sighed. “There are things I don’t understand and maybe never will. That’s hard. Especially with my little girl.”

  I took a sip of bottled water. “But the bottom line is that I trust God. He is faithful to me. And sometimes, that’s all I need to know.” I set my water bottle on the coffee table and straightened my shoulders in my chair.

  The prayer leader smiled as she reached out to take my hand. She held it firmly in one hand and gently caressed it with her other. “I can see the difference in your face,” she said softly. The three other women in our group reached out to touch my shoulders.

  “Let’s pray right now for Madison,” the prayer leader whispered. We bowed our heads together.

  Three days later we received Madison’s test results and were on a flight back to Yemen. Madison had undergone an extensive EEG followed by an MRI. She did not have lesions in her central nervous system. She had an irregularity in the left temporal lobe of her brain, which caused focal seizures in her mouth area. She was diagnosed with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy of Childhood and was placed on anti-seizure medication. She was expected to outgrow the condition by her teenage years.

  We flew with joy back to Yemen. Madison’s prognosis was excellent, and so was mine. I had learned to trust God completely, not circumstantially.

  I knew God would test me in that trust again. I hoped that when He did, I would take His hand and follow Him farther across that line in the sand.

  Spring returned to Sana’a. Cream-colored pinwheels leaked perfume from the vine along our wall. Neighborhood children pestered our gate to pluck them for their mothers, who wanted the jasmine blossoms to scent their hair. Mornings were clear and fresh. I wanted to skip down the sidewalks in my balto like a child in a field of wildflowers. We were on the brink of summer—and on the brink of finishing language study.

  I was both eager and hesitant to be finished. I wanted to complete exams and evaluations and move from the rank of language student to the status of work contributor. But I was hesitant to leave Fatima. I knew our friendship would not end, but our daily time in language study would. I was not sure I was ready to leave it. Fatima seemed to be on the brink of new life herself, of beginning her own relationship with Jesus Christ.

  In the beginning Fatima had not let me mention the name of Jesus. She had joined her friends to deride my Christianity, treating my beliefs as inferior to hers. But that had changed after Qasar’s birth. She became interested in what I believed and asked questions every time we were together. She asked me to pray for her needs and brought me names of sick friends. She believed in my prayer and continually asked me to pray for Qasar, who remained developmentally behind, unable to raise his head or sit unsupported.

  One morning Fatima took my ingil [New Testament] from my lap and caressed it softly. “Helwa [Lovely],” Fatima whispered. “This Book is hallee [sweet]. I want to know the stories in here.”

  Her words made my heart pound in my chest. I could feel it in my throat. “I want to tell them to you, Fatima,” I answered.

  We began to study ten core Bible stories, from the fall of man and his separation from God to Christ’s death and resurrection as God’s way to redemption and relationship with Him. I asked Fatima to help me learn the Bible stories in Arabic. She helped me write and practice each one. She was no longer afraid of them.

  One day Fatima listened as I practiced the story of Abraham offering his son Isaac as a sacrifice. She stopped me mid-story. “It was not Isaac he offered. It was Ishmael!” She narrowed her brown eyes at me. “Why did you change his name in your Book?”

  I met her gaze evenly. “We did not change it, Fatima. Our Book says Isaac, the son of Abraham.”

  I showed her Isaac’s name in Genesis. Then I continued the story, leaving no room for a sidetracking debate. I wanted Fatima to grasp the full meaning of the story, to recognize the faith and obedience that God had required of Abraham and the subsequent sacrifice God had provided in Isaac’s place. I wanted to prepare her ultimately to understand the Lamb that God had provided in our place to fulfill what He required of us. I finished the story without another interruption.

  I closed my Bible and looked at Fatima as she sat next to me on her mufraj. The noonday sun streamed through her new burgundy curtains to streak the wall behind her with rose.

  “Fatima,” I took a deep breath. “Jesus is the Lamb of God. He is the sacrifice God provided as a substitute for us so that we could walk with God. His blood made us clean before God.”

  Fatima looked away as she considered my words. A tear glistened on her eyelashes. After a long pause, she whispered, “You have your way, Audra, and it is hallee [sweet]. Your Book is good.” She looked wistfully into my eyes and took my hand. “We are more than friends, Audra. We are sisters. But you have your way, and I have my way. We will walk in our ways together.”

  My heart ached as I looked intently at her. I longed for Fatima to experience for herself what she kept trying to experience through me. She wanted my prayers, my strength and my hope, but she wanted to get them her way. When her way was not enough, she relied on me to provide what she was looking for. She saw the relationship I had with God and wanted it, but she would not accept that Jesus Christ was the only way to have it. She pondered it but then backed away.

  “We will walk in our ways together,” she repeated softly.

  I swallowed. “Fatima, how can we walk together if we are walking in different directions? Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). You know this verse, Fatima. I have told it to you before. If Jesus Himself
said He is the only Way to God, then there can be no other way, Fatima. Jesus did not lie.”

  Fatima let my hand fall from hers. She gathered our mismatched teacups and placed them on her tray. “We will walk together always,” she said firmly.

  Tears misted my eyes. “Not always, Fatima. There will be a day we cannot walk together.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot.” Tears clouded her eyes as she looked at the tears in mine. “You are leaving Sana’a,” she whispered.

  I dabbed my tears with a tissue before they spilled down my cheeks. Fatima would not let me interfere with what she wanted to believe, even if she knew it was not enough.

  She stood, holding the tray to take to the kitchen. I stood and took my balto from the coatrack as Qasar began to whimper in the bedroom.

  Pain cut through my heart. “Yes, Fatima. I am leaving Sana’a.”

  At home, I reached to hang my balto and hejab on the coatrack and watched them spill off the hook and wilt into a puddle of darkness. I knelt slowly to retrieve them, feeling like my heart had spilled with them. Tears welled in my eyes. I could not stop them as they poured down my cheeks.

  I leaned against the wall. “Lord, I have failed,” I sobbed. “All these months I’ve poured myself into Fatima! I’ve gotten nowhere. She will not accept You as Savior and Lord.” I walked into the bedroom and sat in my rocking chair. I dropped my head into my hands and wept inconsolably.

  When my tears were spent, I dried my eyes and looked gloomily out of the window. “Lord, I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry I did not do more or say more or use more opportunities. I have failed You.”

  I thought of Fatima reciting her prayers and performing good deeds, searching for hope that would remain unfulfilled apart from Christ. I leaned back against my chair and closed my eyes. I felt bone weary.