A Walk With Yeshua: A War, an Encounter, a New Life a Muslim Woman’s Journey Toward Jesus

By Esther Digniin

Similar to the Samaritan woman, Ms. Esther Digniin shares a compelling story of a life faced with sweeping challenges that led to a search for and acceptance of Christ. As a young girl, she held a keen awareness of the presence of God and his involvement in life’s circumstances. Emerging through injury in the midst of the Somali civil war, collapse and loss of her world, and dislocation to foreign countries, Esther begins a journey of awakening from the incorrect interpretation of God ascribed by the faith she was born into to a clear realization of the true nature of God and his direct involvement and assistance one can avail in shaping a new life and achieving wonderful successes. In this enthralling tale of personal experience, Ms. Digniin shares with the reader how she personally challenged truths which became eminent and how others can confront specific questions in their lives to gain similar understanding and application in their walk through life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jun 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684703883

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DIGNIIN

Copyright © 2019 Esther Digniin.

Jacket art copyright © 2011 by Anna DuMoulin. Permission to use granted by artist.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Where indicated, scripture quotations are taken from the St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint (SAAS) Copyright © 2008 by St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Koranic scripture quotations are based on those taken from the Holy Qur’an translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali.

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0373-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0374-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6847-0388-3 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 05/21/2019

To those who are seeking from the heart and mind.

Dedication

I THANK MY WONDERFUL FATHER, the Holy Spirit, and Lord Jesus (Yeshua the Messiah) for making me whom I am today.

Acknowledgments

I THANK MY FAMILY, WHO put up with me even when they could not understand me.

I thank my spiritual guides, fathers and mothers who were with me in times of need.

I thank my Muslim brothers and sisters, who challenged me so I gained a better understanding of who Jesus is.

I thank the deaf community for allowing me to demonstrate who Jesus is with the little sign language I knew.

I love you all very much!

A Walk with Yeshua Jesus

Going through waves of emotions

Which gather atop the seas

I am scarcely holding onto myself

Still, I won’t break

I don’t know why God has forsaken me

But wait, I know why

I am one of the best of His creations

And He has better things for me

I know what my Father would say, The best for last

I know the first time I felt love

That special kind

I thought I knew all that was

But my heart was shaken, only for me to know

God gave me a true love—everlasting

Granted me eternal life

I am flying under the wings of Yeshua Christ my Rabbi

He is the light

The way and the life

There is none like Him, Alleluia

He loves me more than His creations,

Even more than the sun and the stars that He made shine

You are amazing grace my Lord, my Elohim!

I thank you, my King

Your love endures forever

—Esther Digniin

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

—John 14:6

CHAPTER 1

A Twinkling Star

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EVERY NIGHT, I RAN UPSTAIRS and sat on the roof of our house to watch the stars emerge in the darkening sky and slowly journey across the heavens. The fragrant smells of the sea and flowers from the garden wafted over me as a light wind passed. I was amazed by the massive number of twinkling stars that created a blanket or mantle across the darkening firmament and the silvery brightness of the moon. It was as if a ceiling made up of the cosmos was hovering over me. I wondered who controlled these amazing things in space. Though I was very young, I realized that I was somehow beginning to appreciate my surroundings at a level of awareness I had not noticed before. As I lay on my back and looked up at the vast, stellar sky, I asked if there was a creator of all this. And if so, I asked him to move one star. As I watched, a single star started to move slowly and then streaked across the sky as quickly as the blink of an eye. I was so happy and excited about the whole experience that I could not wait to tell my parents and friends. I knew that such things do not just happen, as my parents had tried to explain in the past.

In my home country of Somalia up to the early 1990s, we had no significant light pollution and the night sky was always perfect in its position. On our roof, it seemed one could reach out and touch the incredibly vast expanse of twinkling stars above one’s head. Somehow, I knew God made the stars move to show his power. Much later in life, in my search for the nature of God, I came to know how—in the Qur’an, sura (chapter) Al-A’raf (7), ayat (verse) 54, and in the Jewish and Christian Bibles’ book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 1–31—three religions had parallel words to attribute the creation of this heavenly body to God. Unknowingly as a young girl, perhaps I somehow perceived the magic of the creation of the heavens these verses described. I would feel the peace of the night while the rest of the world was asleep.

At that time, I believed that God could do all things. I could not help but believe there was a greater power and an originator of all. There was this vast universe, beyond human comprehension, containing our solar system with a life-giving sun. Our earth—spinning within created gravity—gave us day, night, and the changing seasons. Two orbs were provided to fill the sky, one during the day and one at night. How could all this be happenstance? A complex watch with all its flywheels and cogs synchronized to provide an exact accounting of time had to be made by a watchmaker. This complex celestial body had to be made by a greater designer—God.

When the morning came, I ran down the stairs from my bedroom and shouted, Mom! Dad! Something amazing happened last night. As I was watching the stars, one of them moved.

Both parents smiled and turned to me, saying that this happens from time to time.

But Mom, Dad, it moved when I asked God.

They looked at me and said, Okay, that is very good, child. Go ahead and get dressed.

I was frustrated with them for dismissing such a great experience and the supernatural nature of God. I was hoping that my parents would have some level of understanding on how God communicates. I went to my room and put on my school uniform, khaki shorts and pressed yellow blouse, and gathered my books. I started singing, He who sees all and he who knows all. Even though I was disappointed in my parents, at the same time, I realized the previous night’s experience was only intended for me.

I went to school from 7:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. After school, most students used to go to a Qur’anic school (dugsi), where we learned how to read the Qur’an and to write the Qur’an on long wooden boards (loox) with black chalk we made from charcoal and milk with no translation from Arabic to Somali. The learning of Qur’anic scriptures involved practicing how to write in cursive long passages of Arabic script. Our religious schools and many families were not wealthy enough to provide notebooks and pencils like children in Western schools are used to seeing. Age-old answers to providing reusable media were the long wooden boards and homemade ink. These schools were open air, bent-wood shelters (Cariish) with dirt floors. The more substantial huts were made with wattle walls daubed with a mixture of cow dung and mud that created solid walls and roofing. There was no air conditioning when the temperature reached the high 80̊s fahrenheit. We were made to sit on the dirt floors with no mats or other covering. We could not enter these spaces whenever it rained until the ground dried.

In these schools, we were also taught discipline. The teachers had long sticks and, if we made a mistake, would not hesitate to use them. We learned to recite the Qur’an through rote memorization. Reflecting, I can see how so many are programmed in this manner of inculcation. It was indoctrination, forced memorization of passages in the Holy Qur’an in a language we did not understand—enforced by a threat of physical punishment. We were taught compulsory prayer times and rigid reiteration of standard prayers.

How was one to learn about the nature of God? How was one supposed to establish a relationship with God by being able to communicate directly to Him with personal questions? How was one to understand His interface with humankind and our world? How was one to learn how to properly offer words of thanksgiving, humble admissions of committed sins, and appeals for forgiveness? We were taught that God is far off in the heavens, that He is able to hear us, but that He does not associate with humans on earth.

For me in particular, one concept in all this inculcation was odd—God was omnipotent, capable of all things, yet not able to become human.

I would question the dugsi instructor (Macalin). Why were we studying religion in a language that no one understood?

These instructors were only regurgitating what they had been taught earlier without being able to explain or translate. They would become incensed when I, a mere child, would challenge them on the meaning of a particular Arabic scripture, and they would sometimes whip me.

When this happened, I would run away and hide from my family in the backyard. On these occasions, as the afternoons drew toward evening, my mother would have to search for me, as I had not returned from the dugsi. She would eventually discover that I had run away and usually find me hiding in our yard. When my parents questioned the dugsi about what had happened, the explanation they received was that I had been disciplined for misbehaving, which my parents simply accepted.

I began to believe that religious learning was worthless if no one could explain concepts about God to me and a waste of time if we grew up not knowing who God is. I always asked questions about who created the earth and the nature of God. I often said to my mother, Whoever created me is out there.

No one understood what I was talking about. People assumed I was referring to my mother giving birth to me and thought I was odd to make such comments. Every evening, my family would come together, pray (salat), and listen to the Qur’an. I never understood why some of the people would chant about God and never act on his laws or explore the meaning of what they were reciting. I saw many members of my family, friends, and house staff reciting words written about God in daily prayers. They genuflected before God five times a day but were not putting into action the meaning of these words in their daily lives.

At one point in my youthful contemplation, I set out to study people beyond the members of my family. I wanted to learn what others believed and to compare their beliefs, their ways of worship, and how they conducted their lives to my family.

I began by asking myself, Who is God? And why do people worship Him? I wondered, Has anyone seen Him? What does He look like? What is prayer? Can He hear me when I pray? Is God far away or close to me?

I decided to take a journey of discovery to find out for myself since no one at home could give me the answers to these questions.

I packed a bag with food and drinks and told no one I was going out. With a notebook and a pen