Scarred like her Savior
Karima watched from the window as the mob approached her house, carrying scythes and rods.
We’ve changed Karima’s name since she lives in a country where Christians are persecuted.
Karima’s family sat in silence and held their breath, steeling themselves for the persecution that was coming. Karima jumped as the men burst through the door, slamming it against the wall.
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“Please,” her father begged. “Don’t do any wrong to us … we have not done any wrong to you!”
The mob responded by dragging her father outside and beating him until he was bruised and bloody.
Karima helplessly watched as one by one the men attacked her family. They beat her grandfather and then her mother. Next, they came for Karima.
Her stomach dropped. One of the men grabbed her by the hair and dragged her outside. While beating and kicking her, he screamed, “You are doing such wrong things!”
Karima will never forget that day as long as she lives. But she refuses to let it define her or traumatize her to the extent that she abandons her faith. Instead, the persecution has encouraged her to spread the message of the Gospel to as many people as possible.
“The Bible is everything to me,” Karima said.
When she shared her story, she even asked for help getting another Bible so she could give it to another person hungry for God’s word. The problem is that in many countries like Karima’s Bibles are extremely scarce.
Not only are Christians brutally attacked, mocked, and sometimes killed for their faith … but they also don’t have God’s Word easily accessible to read for comfort amid such incredible suffering.
Nov. 3 is International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. And after hearing Karima’s story, I’m making it a point to spend some time that day in prayer that more Bibles will find their way into the hands of Christ-followers who have never owned one before. I hope you’ll join me.
We enjoy such wonderful religious freedom here in America, and most of us have multiple Bibles sitting on our shelves. So the least we can do is pray for God’s Word to reach into the most spiritually dark places on earth and, if we are able, to donate some of those Bibles ourselves.
Karima still bears the physical scars of what those men did to her that day. But she hasn’t let that harden her heart. She remembers the scars left on her Savior’s hands and feet that she has read about in her Bible and knows serving Him is worth any cost.
Karima isn’t afraid of what man can do to her because she has access to God’s promises in His Word. Will you pray with me for other Christians still waiting for that chance?
Kelsey Campbell writes for World Help, a Christian humanitarian organization serving the physical and spiritual needs of people in impoverished communities around the world. To learn more about World Help’s work with persecuted Christians, click here.
