Azra

She didn’t consider herself beautiful. Especially after. After … well, she didn’t want to think about it. Push it back, push it back, forget. Try to forget. But then he would come again.

She saw what happened to the other girls and women who complained when men had hurt them. She heard that her friend’s sister had disappeared. Her friend was suddenly an old woman, even though she was only ten. She wouldn’t talk. She couldn’t. In her eyes the story could be seen, but the words were forbidden. She knew. She knew they were killed to “protect” the family honor if they got dirty. If men came and …

… she was dirty.

She grew very quiet. She kept in the shadows. She tried to not be there. But he still came.

She didn’t wash, or do her hair. Maybe that would help. Her mother told her to behave. Her father threatened to beat her. She washed. She wanted to take a scissor to her hair and just hack it in strange places. But that would also shame the family honor. She wanted to run away. But there was no place to go. Only bad girls ran, and they were always found.

She heard from a friend two houses down that her older sister escaped by getting good grades and being sent to university boarding school. So she worked hard. She passed exams. She applied. She won. She went. But on holiday, they sent this same cousin to come and pick her up, to bring her home. He must have offered. He always made himself seem so kind, the whole family loved him. And she couldn’t tell.

But now she was grown he behaved differently. She understood. If she was found with child, he would be implicated. She knew that he could ask her father for her hand, but she shuddered to think of it. To prevent this she told her mother that the school had classes during the summer and if she advanced, she could have a better salary in the future. Only she would need to stay in school. Mother was sad. But Mother couldn’t know. No one could.

Finally she learned how to get around on her own, and got a job. She earned money, and with it she moved away. Far away. She thought carefully and took a mail box in another city, and let that be where the family thought she was. She had a friend from school in that city, and paid her to collect the mail once a month and send it to another mailbox, in her current place, but not near her home. She changed her hair color, got contacts, and always, always looked everywhere, whenever she left home or work. She still kept to herself. She didn’t know whom to trust.

Then one day a co-worker invited her over. She was a quiet, respectable woman. Maybe she could go. Maybe at least being friends with her co-workers would be safe. She hoped so. She was so lonely. She went. There were others there she didn’t know, but they all seemed to be nice. Someone was playing a guitar, they were singing. Some of the songs she knew. The folk songs about being a harbor or a bay; about asking a boy to ask her father for her hand. She choked up. That one she couldn’t sing along for. No, not that.

Then they sang one she didn’t know.

“If I could be your courts, near you, Lord, if I could sit and look into your face and be fed from your love.”

Suddenly, she felt a warmth come over her, a sense that whoever this “Lord” was, He was present. Instead of cringing inside, as she always did when she thought of men, she felt safe. It was a curious feeling. The song went on,

“Father, I miss, I long for your home. Every day my spirit misses you. You will come. My eyes are drawn to your road, my soul is pulled. my inner parts long for your home, Father.”

She looked around, everyone’s eyes were closed, singing the song. It was as if they were describing her! She felt that longing, that ache, that pulling, that being drawn, but she didn’t know to Whom. Who was this “Father”, this “Lord”?

As the song tapered off, she gathered her courage to ask, but the man playing the guitar spoke softly. “Some of you are asking Who it is we are singing of. We are worshipping our God. He is the Triune God. He is our Father, our Savior, and it is His Holy Spirit that moves us. If you feel your heart being pulled, He is showing you that He is present and that He loves you and sees you and knows what you have been through.”

That night she gave her life to the Lord. Her co-worker introduced her to them all.

“What a beautiful name! Azra means virgin!” one girl smiled.

Azra cringed. She knew that wasn’t true. She hated her name.

“We who follow God often read His Holy Book, and in there, He tells us that those of us who choose to follow Him, and keep turning our hearts to Him are like virgins who are preparing their hearts for their bridegroom,” the guitarist said, “You have a name which reminds us of how God comes and washes each of us clean, and makes us able to be virgins.”

“Yes,” one girl spoke up, “I wasn’t a virgin anymore. Things had happened to me, and I made bad choices, but when I gave my heart to Jesus, He showed me that He has the power to come and wash me clean and make me a virgin again. I’m so, so thankful!”

Azra gasped. “That’s possible?”

“Yes, Azra,” her co-worker said, “we have all sinned, and people have sinned against us. We live in a wicked world. But God died on the cross so that we can be cleansed and made new. He took our sins upon Himself and He gives us the power to forgive those who hurt us.”

Azra stayed long into the night. She talked with these new friends, and one of them was able to lead her in a Sozo. She experienced God showing her that He wept when she was abused, and that He was washing her clean. By morning Azra was Azra … the Azra she had been created by God to be.