The Power of a Changed Person

There is something about Christmas colors that just cheer me up. This capture was taken at my youngest uncle’s house. He is married to this wonderful godly woman—the godliest person I know. It doesn’t take you long after you meet her to realize she is a very special person. When we have a family gathering she probably does 99% of the serving! When you meet her you will realize all her day is spent with her loving others, serving them, giving them gifts, encouraging them, comforting them, praying for them, and building them up. You know, they say behind every great man there is a woman: she has truly built my uncle up spiritually and any other good way. At her old church she was nicknamed “God’s faithful daughter”. My uncle is a believer too and he is an awesome, loving and funny man. She loves the fact he makes her laugh. Of course she completely adores him and he completely loves her back, which is amazing given the fact they are not two teenagers having their first crush on each other—they are in their early 40s and have been married for many years.

They run such godly lives that as soon as you enter their car or house you feel different. You feel like you can’t sin in their house—you truly feel God’s presence and protection over their lives. The atmosphere of their house is very much like being in church—it is like Satan, and  sin, are far away from it. You suddenly find yourself living a godly life once you enter their house; it is like their godliness rubs on you! I’ve known my uncle’s wife for 11 years now and I haven’t once seen her getting tired of serving others, gossiping, judging or criticizing someone, raising her voice, or even saying something not positive like “this color doesn’t match you”, or “you are late”! Hating or disliking someone? Forget about it, you simply won’t see that in her! And I am not talking about a simple minded person—she is a very educated woman who can talk about any topic (including cameras and cars!). She jokes and so on, she is very normal–she just doesn’t wrong others or God somehow! It is like she is a walking sermon, and that her daily life is a 24 hours worship by works.

She is from Egypt and her family is Copt (Orthodox) Christians. She accepted Jesus Christ as her savior as a young lady by hearing about having a relationship with Jesus Christ from some classmates. When she accepted Jesus Christ as her savior her family prosecuted her—they thought she was going crazy praising God and reading the Bible religiously! To give you some background:

The Power of a Changed Person by Fadi

In the Middle East a lot of Christian denominations, such as the Roman Catholic church in Iraq, hate those Christian denominations that teach you have to have a relationship with Jesus Christ because this threatens their traditions and heritage (since a relationship cannot be based on pointless and endless babbling of prayer books, among many other reasons.) So those Middle Eastern denominations make those other salvation-based denominations sound like they are false religions who are trying to confuse people and separate them from the “true-church” (of course every denomination claims it is the “true-church”).

So my uncle’s wife got prosecuted by her family thinking she went mad, beside they didn’t like the fact she wasn’t following their traditional faith anymore. They locked her up in her room for months. They prevented her from seeing anyone. They prevented her from going to university (she was accepted into medical school). Her mom even tried to kill her three times. Her family didn’t even go to her wedding, even though her wedding was many years later after the initial animosity toward her. Now, a couple decades later, she has a wonderful and tight relationship with her family. Somehow she forgave them and restored her relationship with them. This of course takes a lot of humility to restore a relationship with someone who wronged you; it is like asking for forgiveness from someone you didn’t wrong but they wronged you! In the last few years she has been spending every day serving, loving, and taking care of her ill elderly mother.

It is amazing how one person allowing God to work in her heart and life can affect for the good so many lives around her. She is the main reason I say: the biggest miracle of God I’ve seen is a changed life.