Turning Back

Life here can often break your heart. Yesterday my heart was broken more than I think it ever has.

I had a visitor who said she was just passing by and wanted to say hi. She refused to stay long, though I begged her to sit several times. She said she needed to leave and started to walk out the door. I told her that I would be happy to start studying with her whenever she had the chance, and she walked out the gate.

This visitor is one who we met during our last term. She had met some previous workers and had a copy of the Word that they had given her. She told me she was studying in secret and yet her family had found out. They were putting pressure on her to come back to their way and wanted her to marry a man not of her new faith. I prayed with her many times and studied with her when I could. A year before we left, she left our town to study in the capital. Just before we returned, I found out that she had given birth to a baby girl.  Since we returned to our town, she has returned as well. She has been friendly, occasionally visiting me. However things seemed different.

Shortly after she left, she came back in the gate. She gave me the news that she had gone back to her family's faith because of pressure from her father. I am sure she feels the pressure more so with needing to also provide for her baby.  I encouraged her in the need to respect parents. I confessed to her that I really do not understand that kind of pressure, but I know that The Son does. He said that we would be hated because He was hated, and we would be beaten because He was beaten. I told her that there are other followers in the villages who are being beaten by their families and yet holding firm. I prayed with her to be shown the True Way and to have courage to follow it.

The Word teaches that it is better for the one who never knew than for the one who knew and turned back. Lift up this young lady to know His Truth!