Welcome to Voices of the Middle East, a SAT-7 UK podcast.
SAT-7 is an international Christian media ministry bringing life-changing joy to the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Last year we had over 103,000 one-to-one conversations with viewers, and through these conversations we are hearing constant stories of the ways God is at work in people’s lives.
In this podcast, we’ll share some of their stories with you, and invite you to pray for SAT-7 and the people of the region.
Today we share with you a special Christmas testimony, the story of Shirin, a mother from Iran who was living in Belgium with her family. Belgium sounds like an ideal place to spend Christmas, with picturesque Christmas markets, mulled wine, chocolate, and the possibility of snow, but Shirin and her family discovered something far more important. After watching SAT-7 PARS, she reached out to the Viewer Support team to share her remarkable story.
“Greetings and heavenly blessings to you, dear friends. Before I came to faith in Christ, I was always seeking the True God. Everything I knew was ambiguous and I could get a hold of nothing solid and true. Life felt empty, and yet there was a faint light of hope because I believed there was a Creator, even though He might be far from me and unable to see me,” Shirin began.
So often, what we see in those who contact SAT-7 is an earnest seeking for the truth. We believe that God is always true to His Word, that those who truly seek Him will find Him.
Then Shirin told us about the incident that caused her to question everything. She said, “While I faced many problems at the time, I was able to be patient until something happened to my daughter, which caused her to become severely depressed. She locked herself in her room and did not emerge for three or four months. I wept so much and prayed – but to whom? I saw my beautiful daughter in that state and suffered with the rest of my family.”
It’s hard to imagine the anguish Shirin must have been feeling as a mother. But God was about to work in the midst of her family’s suffering.
She said, “It was around Christmas time, and I was invited to attend church. It was my first time. I heard the worship and the songs, and I told myself, 'This is just another way of making people hope in God. What God? There is no God for me to hope in.’”
But even when Shirin had no hope, God had arranged for her to bump into an old friend.
She continued, “By coincidence, I saw an old friend I hadn’t seen or heard from in years worshipping in the front row. I told myself, ‘she has lost her mind.’ After the service, we embraced one another and exchanged news. She said she’d had cancer and Jesus had healed her, but I didn’t pay much attention to her story. When she asked me about my daughter, I burst into tears and told her everything. My friend told me: ‘If you ask Jesus, He will heal her.’”
Shirin thought that she had no hope, but even so, something had drawn her to attend the church that Christmas. Sometimes, opening the door of our hearts, even just a crack, is enough for God to enter into our lives and circumstances. That tiny glimpse of hope prompted Shirin to pray to Jesus that night.
She told the Viewer Support team, “That night, I was about to pray before going to bed, and I remembered what my friend had said, so I lifted my hands heavenward and said ‘Jesus, I don’t know who You are, but I know You are so dear to God. I don’t know if you are a prophet, God, or a human being. I just don’t know. I am just asking that by tomorrow my daughter will open her bedroom door and come out healed.’ I was crying as I said these things.
“The next morning when I came upstairs, I saw my daughter’s bedroom door standing open. I was amazed and happy. She had become so weak that she could barely stand. To help her get stronger we travelled home to Iran. I was very happy and kept telling my family about the miracle of Jesus.”
How amazing! Shirin didn’t understand the ins and outs of who exactly Jesus is yet, but that didn’t stop Him from reaching out and healing her daughter. All she did was pray in hope. And soon, Shirin’s hope would turn into real faith in Jesus.
She continued her story, “One night, I dreamt that I was walking on a street, and I saw a great white pavilion standing in place of the castle of Karim Khan Zand, the 18th Century king of Iran. I felt drawn to it and went inside, where I saw many people dressed in white, who looked so peaceful and orderly, sitting at a very wide and long table. In front of each of them was fruit on a plate. I went in and stood to one side. At a table, wearing a long white robe was a beautiful, tall man who looked like one of the old kings, with piercing yet kind eyes. He put some fruit on a plate and, giving it to one of His servants, he gestured towards me, and the servant brought the plate to me. I was the only one in the gathering wearing a long shirt and trousers, a type of outfit often worn by many women in Iran for religious reasons, but I only had eyes for the tall man whose presence was casting light around Him. I will never forget his face and eyes. When I woke up, I kept saying, ‘Jesus Christ has accepted me – He received me at His table and I am now a Christian’. I was full of an incredible sense of joy.”
At SAT-7, we often hear of Jesus revealing Himself to people from the MENA in dreams. The more we open the door of our hearts, the more light rushes in, as God reveals more of Himself to us. Shirin soon returned to Belgium with her family, and a desire to make a true commitment to God.
She went on, “Back in Belgium, I prayed the prayer of salvation at church. My daughter was fully healed and a little later she too gave her life to Jesus. She got married and her husband has also given his life to Christ; the two of them are very happy and have a son called Emanuel. They know the grace of the Lord Jesus, who has brought joy, blessing and freedom to them. Praise You, God, for Your powerful hand is always at work.”
God certainly was at work through everything that had happened to Shirin and her family. What a wonderful story of God’s grace and salvation to warm our hearts this Christmas time.
Shirin got in touch with SAT-7 a second time, again around Christmas. She had the following reflections about the nativity story to share:
“As I was thinking about why it was that the Lord Jesus Christ had to be born in a stable and placed in a manger, the Lord planted the answer in my heart. Because a stable is dark and dirty like the hearts of human beings, and Christ's light shines in our hearts to bring light and to purify us. Amen, my Lord. Thank You that You are shining Your light in our hearts and purifying us. Hallelujah!”
May the Lord shine His light into our hearts once more this Christmas. Let’s give thanks for Shirin’s amazing story and that God has revealed Himself to mankind.
Lord, we thank you that you stand at the doors of our hearts and knock. Thank you that you are always ready to enter in, pouring in Your light the moment we open our hearts to you, even just a tiny crack.
Thank you for revealing yourself to Shirin, for healing her daughter and for turning her hope into true faith. We pray that others from Iran and the rest of the MENA region will discover this hope and place their faith in you.
Finally, Lord, we pray that you will draw us closer to you this Christmas, as we experience again the light that shone out of that dark, dirty stable on the first Christmas night.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to Voices of the Middle East, a SAT-7 UK podcast. Our teams on the ground are creating powerful, faith-filled television and digital media that is watched by millions of people in 25 countries, and our viewer support teams are always on hand to help people with questions, counselling and prayer requests. Viewers’ names have been changed for security, and actors have been used to represent their voices.
To pray with us every day, visit sat7uk.org/pray and download our latest Prayer Diary.
