Testimony of Roxie Goin (Aliyah Solemon)

Bismillah Hir Rehman Ir Raheem
Start In the Name Of Allah The Most Beneficent The Most Merciful

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How a devoted Christian found Islam after 9/11?

My Journey to Islam

My journey to find out what GOD was really about started so long ago. I was about 5 when I made my first little altar to GOD in my room. It had a little white NT bible, a cross, a Buddha, Gonesh and lol a little gnome like guy with a picture of a very white JESUS. No you might think that strange, but I am an only child, but come from a huge family. My Dad had 17 brothers and sisters and my grandpa’s brother lived close by, and there were another 9 from there. So I had lots of cousins. My Mom only had a brother.

My first remembrance of anything like a church was the Kingdom Hall, oh yeah, my grandparents on my Mom’s side were Jehovah witnesses. I went with them a lot to the meetings. I also went to Sunday school at the Nazarene church down the street, attended Vacation Bible school at the Church of GOD. I was no stranger to churches. In my family there were: Pentecostal (real holy rollers), Assembly of GOD, Church of Christ, Church of GOD, Mormon, 7th day Adventist, Southern Baptist, Methodist and Catholic. I knew a total of some total of 12 churches. I asked at Sunday school when I was about 8 why GOD would kill his son? They told me he did it for me to take away my sins.(I thought that rather peculiar cos none of my cousins would take a spanking for me…..let alone someone die for me.) I always felt sorry for GOD cos everyone was talking about JESUS.

As my walk progressed, I went to one church and was told the Bible I had was the wrong one, to get such and such so started my buying of all translations of the Bible cos I would from then on ask them, which bible do you use before I went with them to any services. Hey a kid wants to be prepared. I was baptized into several different churches, each one said the baptism from the other one didn’t count. I could not understand this, and kept looking in the Bible for what Jesus church was. I was 11 when my Dad went to start a plywood mill in Louisiana (we lived in Oregon). When we got to Louisiana the race riots were in full swing, I could not believe what I was seeing. My Dad also got KKK protestors in front of the plywood mill cos he hired blacks too. My Dad simply told them, they are men and if they can do the work, then I will hire them, and if you bring anymore of your hate here, I will have you arrested. He then pulled the employees in for a meeting and said that he would not stand for the KKK or any racist people to push their ideas on anyone at the mill and if they didn’t like it, leave now and consider yourself fired.

During that time I saw many Christian crosses burnt, cars burnt, dogs killed, and houses set on fire. I once witnessed a car accident on the corner by our house, and we ran to it.When the sheriff got there, he told the medics not to worry, it was only niggers and take their time. I was shocked and at this time was 12 years old. A few weeks later, all the neighbor kids and I walked to the little store, we lived out in the country. When we were going in, a little black girl about 5-6 was coming out with a huge sack of flour, she dropped it and you know what pavement does to flour! She was standing there crying and crying. I gave her enough money to get more flour. From then on, my wonderful Christian friends called me Nigger Lover and I had to sit at the back of the bus. What kind of GOD would teach this? What kind of Bible would teach this?

I was 14 and sang in the Methodist church choir, and was attending the Trinity Baptist church. I remember hearing them say that the black man was from CAIN nd we could have nothing to do with them, they were the mark of Satan. That was sad cos my best friend was black-her Dad was at the Air Force base…they moved soon after that. I then went to the local Assembly of God church with school friends. Learned about the Holy Spirit, all the preachers ie: Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Billy Graham etc. It seemed that every time we saw them on TV or got information from them; they wanted money for this and money for that. It was at that time, I not only added to my library with all the different bibles, I started buy books like crazy at the Christian bookstore. DaveWilkerson, Kathryn Kuhlman, and of course got records by Andre Crouch and the Disciples, Maranatha singers, andMikeWarnke. Yes this
dates me.

The Christian bookstore loved to see me come there, I love books so buying books 5-6 at a time (weekly) was my delight. I got history books on Christianity, books on preachers etc. I then became a young adult and joined the NEWLIFE CENTER. It was Foursquare Gospel. I was in the spirit…still my
buying of books and trying to seek knowledge was not satisfied. I married, had kids and they attended church school at the Assembly of God. Soon after this time, a horrible fight broke out locally about the Foursquare Gospel church being heretical; they didn’t want the city to allow them a religious license. People who belonged to it were sneered at, and when we had parades for the local loyalty days-people screamed at us, and threw things at us. I started noticing at our church it was more about who wore what and what house they lived in, than about family of believers. I would see people sit with only certain people, women comment about other women and their clothes (now I know why there will be more women in hell than men, women are hateful and so jealous.)

So I still kept buying books I had over 9 tall bookcases of books on Christianity, all saying this one is right, that one is right and on and on. I could not understand why people who professed to believe the same book had so many differences. I knew that GOD is a GOD who does not cause confusion, satan does. I would reflect on my own family who could not agree on who GOD was or JESUS. Some believed JESUS was GOD, some believed he was a prophet. Some believed the Holy Spirit made you speak in tongues, and some said that was of the devil. Some said once saved always saved, some said no you could lose salvation. Some said you are sinless, some said no, you have to work out your own salvation. I had a horrible time with a GOD who would cause soo much disharmony
and confusion among the believing people.

During this time I joined women’s groups like AGLOW, and soon dropped out of that, too much fakery and who is wearing what they got all emotional screaming and crying….the very same people that I knew during the week became Christ like one day a week. Still there were several verses in the Bible that bothered me, “Lord, Lord, have I not prophesized in your name and cast out demons?” and “If they say Christ is here or Christ is there believe it not.” The churches I belonged to in the past all said they had Christ and the other said they had Christ..that pretty much correlated with some say “he is there and some say he is here” and the one about doing all those things “in Jesus name and he saying depart from me ye workers of Iniquity !” I knew since he was talking about the Christian faith, something had to be seriously wrong somewhere.

That led me to JOB and studying him, and he wasn’t even a JEW but was faithful to GOD. That meant to me that he did the will of GOD and submitted to him and never questioned him. It was about this time I started to study the history of religion, who decided what, and how. It led me on a long interesting trip. I moved to another town and started to attend a small church. My studies continued on, I bought Joyce Meyers books, Max Lucado, TD Jakes,Watchman Nee, Binny Hinn, and a lot of the books that are still common today. Yet I still saw an underlying issue, one would say one thing and the other say something else, all out of the same bible. IF GOD were the writer of the Bible as some claimed, why would he write something so confusing if he wanted all to know about him? Why would GOD in his mercy, give you one road, and take you to hell on another according to each of the churches? It was about this time that soul sleep became the issue locally. Some believed when you died, you went straight to heaven or hell and some said you sleep and then the resurrection. I dove deeper into that subject too. I know that all will be judged in the end times It does not say today, but end times when all is said and done people could not get their head around the fact that maybe their family member is just sleeping until the resurrection.-always it seems they were looking for that “feel good cozy feeling. “

Then I got into the rapture stuff. The history of how that came about was something….how a belief can change just from some woman having a vision or dream! The church has taken so many changes throughout history I began to question who in history could be saved if they always had to change something? The Bible issue “NEW AND IMPROVED” really got to me; did it mean all the people who had the old one were led astray? Does this mean GOD changes his mind on what it takes to follow him? I gave away my expansive Christian library and kept only a few bibles and few reference books. Some years passed and I was still reading and studying all I could find on issues…then 9/11 hit. Hmm who are these Muslims and what do they really believe? The local bookstore had to order me a Quran, there were none to be found in my area anywhere. I wondered how so many could say something bad about someone if they had never read their book or studied their belief system? How could they say they were wrong, when they came from Abraham also?

Anyhow, while in the bookstore, there was a book called “Faith, Power and Fantasy in the Middle East from 1776 to present” by Michael Oren a Jewish historian, since I loved reading about history, I bought the huge book. What an insight to things….I would urge anyone to get it, dry reading but so much information and bibliography. While waiting for my Quran to come, I met a Muslim online through a computer geeks chat room. I found out he was Muslim and we discussed some things about the Quran, but each time I asked a question, there was no hesitation in answering me. No long drawn out explanation. No telling me this was this and the same as that. My Quran arrived, and at first reading it was a little strange to me. I told my Muslim friend about this and he said, “read it out loud to yourself.” Once I did that, it was like opening the flood gates of reason and rationality. Since I was a Christian, I understood so many things…and to say the least - it confirmed what I felt and knew to be true from all my seeking, it answered questions that no minister could answer. Even when I was little I was told Angels did not have freewill and could only do as GOD instructed them. I could not understand how the devil was once an angel then, and
could go against GOD the Jinn made sense.

I could not justify a GOD becoming a man, cos we were told he was more than that and what didn’t make sense to that theory, is if GOD had to become Man to save us cos we were so sinful that he could not look upon us, how could he take on the body of a sinful man? I had read all the Pagan religious ideology and realized that you only need to change the name to JESUS in all of them and they said the same thing. So in Islam I found peace, understanding and logic. I always believed God was a logical being and would not tell us to ‘push button A’ when he meant ‘pull knob B’. HE does not operate that way, HE is far above that, and I knew that if parents told kids something, it was so they would understand, and GOD would make sure to be logical cos in the future
someone will say “but you didn’t explain it that way”

So I took my shahada , and started my peace. But peace wasn’t going to last too long, my family thought I was nuts, and should be committed…..I was the only Muslim in my area- the closest being 120 miles away. My mother refused to walk with me or go to the store with me in my hijab….my kids- it didn’t matter-all the Christian schooling, they became atheists. But they remained in agreement with my mother that I had flipped my lid…I moved 2000+ miles away 6 years after my shahada to escape the hatred within my own family. The same confusion they all had with with each other about all their different religions….the only thing they could agree on was I was in “cohoots with satan” I had traveled to Egypt and stayed there for a month, I loved it. The people were so nice. One thing I learned there, if there were a suitcase or a bag or a bike on the sidewalk, no one touched it, I asked one of my new acquaintances there “why no one took with it?” She said, ALLAH is watching and it is not theirs. A people who know God watches all. I grow to love ISLAM more and more every day, I am ravenous when reading or seeking, I now have a huge library of books on ISLAM and oh yes I read the bad with the good…..the pro with the con, I always want to know what someone has to say. I have watched all the documentaries on ISLAM pro and con, I own many DVDs. Islam is so easy

Submission to ALLAH>ONE GOD with all the prophets, and forgiveness by asking and just turning away from evil.
MASHA ALLAH