Asma’s Story: Forgiveness and Reconciliation with an Absent Father
In many families within the Persian-speaking world, abandonment and broken relationships leave lasting scars. For Christian converts, these experiences are often made more difficult by isolation, suspicion, and the cultural expectation to honor family ties even when they are fractured. The weight of resentment can be heavy, and forgiveness can feel impossible at times.Forgiveness and reconciliation
Asma’s story shows us the healing power of Christ. She has been a believer for three years. Her childhood was marked by pain and loss. When Asma and her siblings were young, their father abandoned them and remarried, never returning or providing support. Their mother fell seriously ill and eventually died of cancer, leaving them without any support system or means of provision. The wounds of abandonment were deep, and Asma struggled for years with anger and resentment toward her father. She often cursed him silently, carrying the burden of unforgiveness in her heart.When Asma accepted Jesus into her life, she began to pray repeatedly for the ability to forgive her father. Forgiveness was not immediate. It required much prayer for the bitterness to be replaced with God’s peace.
One day, unexpectedly, someone knocked at their door. It was her father. He was gravely ill with cancer and admitted that he had very little time left to live. After years of absence, he came seeking forgiveness. The encounter was emotionally overwhelming for Asma, but as she embraced him, she felt the bitterness she had held for so many years fall away. She shared the love of Jesus Christ, explaining that God has the power to heal and restore, and she gave him a New Testament to read.
A renewed love
Since that day, her father has been visiting regularly and reading ‘the book’. Each visit has become a time for spiritual dialogue and connection. Asma has witnessed the beginnings of transformation in him as he confronts his life, his mistakes, and the possibility of reconciliation with God. This has also become an opportunity for Asma to model the love of Christ in a situation that was once a source of pain. God turned around an impossible situation, bringing healing and reconciliation.Prayer Points
- Pray for healing for Asma’s father. Ask that through this illness he may experience God’s grace, repentance, and salvation.
- May her father continue to grow in understanding and faith as he reads the New Testament, may the Holy Spirit guide him to a deep, abiding relationship with Jesus.
- Pray for protection against any societal, cultural, or spiritual pressures that might seek to undermine their faith. May the Lord strengthen their courage to live boldly as believers, even in a country where following Christ can bring imprisonment and ostracization from the community.
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