Fatima Murray: Brit Overcomes Haunted Past
Fatima grew up in a house of fear. Her father was involved in occult practices. She remembers strange and unsettling images from her childhood.
"Once when I must have been about 8 or 9 and asleep, I heard this great big flapping of wings as thought there was a big bird outside. In the doorway of my bedroom, I saw this figure clothed in black just standing there. All I knew was that I was very frightened," she says.
"We had all sorts of strange things happening in the house," Fatima continues, "like drawers opening, cutlery being moved around. Five or six of us would be up at night and still hear that sort of thing."
Even though she was surrounded by spiritual darkness, Fatima was exposed to the light of the gospel. At a young age she was introduced to Jesus Christ.
"Although we were Muslims, we were all sent to a Christian mission school," Fatima explains. "I remember, even as a young child of 6, 7, or 8, hearing these children on the playground talk about this man Jesus like He was some kind of god."
But most of her days and nights were still spent in a home inhabited by eerie spiritual forces. That wasn't the only challenge Fatima faced. She was born with a dangerous birth defect.
"I was born with a hole in my heart," she explains. "One of my valves did not function the way it should, so as a young child I was never allowed to do the things that other children did because I would simply go blue through lack of oxygen."
Fatima continues, "I remember one evening I heard my parents (they must have thought I was asleep) being really unhappy about how my life was going to turn out because I probably wouldn't live beyond a certain age and I certainly wouldn't have a normal life," Fatima recalls. "I remember praying a prayer: 'Jesus, if You're the God that they say you are, then You can make me better.' It was a child's prayer. I think it was a year or two after that when I went for my regular check-up that they suddenly found there was no hole. I still remember the delight on the consultant's face as he said, 'I can't see anything.' "
Even though she believed her childhood healing was an answer to her prayer, Fatima did not become a Christian. Instead, she turned to the dark side of the spiritual world.
"I think it was always a case of wanting to reach beyond. I knew that there was something beyond," she says. "I was dabbling quite firmly in the occult. I actually studied astrology. I was able to read palms and give people answers to problems, or so called answers, I have to say, because nobody seemed to get any lasting benefit or happiness from any of the things I might have said, even though there was a lot of truth in it."
After her first marriage ended in divorce, Fatima met and married a wonderful man named Ian. She had loving children, yet she was still searching. Fatima had a sister who had become a Christian. She convinced Fatima to come to London to attend a Bible study. But after that Bible study, Fatima wanted to tell these Christians exactly what she thought of them.
"I said, 'You Christians, you're so pompous and you think you're the only ones who can go to heaven.' I wasn't very nice. The thing that astounded me was that at the end of it I remember them saying, 'Would you like to come back next week?' They didn't confront me or anything, which I also found quite strange. They didn't try to argue me out of anything."
The next morning, Fatima was alone at her sister's house, waiting for her husband to pick her up. Something quite unusual happened.
"I'm just sitting there. I remember leafing through this book, not even reading it," she says. "Suddenly, there's this man standing in front of me, and He says to me, 'After all I've done for you, why do you reject Me?' He just stood there and He took me through all the times of my life when I had needed somebody, and it was Him, even the time when I was that little girl again and in the playground. I can see it now even with my mind's eye. He just said, 'I heard you then, you know.' When I was divorced the first time, I had financial problems. He said, 'I was there, too, you know.' I just knew who He was even then, and I had rejected Him. I just sat there and I wept because it was just so incredible."
After that experience, Fatima felt an urge to get to know the Lord.
"I remember the next day was a Sunday, and I had this burning desire to read the Bible. I just had to find a Bible. I didn't get changed out of my night dress. I didn't clean my teeth. I didn't know anything about the Bible; I'd never actually opened one except to look at something that said 'Holy Bible,' so I didn't know anything about the contents. I went straight to the gospel because I had to know everything about the Lord. I don't know what it was, but I tore through Matthew, Mark, and most of Luke. I just had such a hunger and such a thirst to find out all I could about One who was my Lord," Fatima recalls.
In reading that Bible, Fatima says she finally met the Jesus she had prayed to as a little girl.
"I knew when I went to the Scriptures and started reading about Jesus, I knew instantly who He was," she says. "Suddenly, there was a reality about everything, and it was that experience also, that closeness that I can't put into words."
Fatima's desire is for everyone to know the love of God and to meet the Lord that she met in the Bible.
"People need to feel the love that I felt. I was blessed because I have a husband who loves me and whom I love. I have children who love me and whom I love. But there are people out there who have neither. All of us need to be loved, and this love is different. It's bigger. It's more important and it fills every gap," she says.
