Happy New Year Poiema friends! Everyone has a story to tell and this month I’m excited to share with you a powerful testimony of faith, courage, surrender and the Father’s love with a guest blogger, my beautiful dear friend and ministry partner, Naghmeh Panahi. She has written a book called I Didn’t Survive, Emerging Whole After Deception, Persecution, and Hidden Abuse. It’s hard enough having a painful secret that you’re terrified of sharing. It’s even harder when you find yourself in the international limelight as the advocate wife of a Christian hero imprisoned for his faith. Through the pain, abuse, and loss, Naghmeh clearly demonstrates what it means for us to find our true identity in God, discover the protective care God has for His children, and participate in sharing the love and healing He desires to bring to the world. This month, join me on her journey 💝 ~ Marie

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” Song of Songs 6:3

I became known to the public when I was advocating for my then husband Saeed Abedini who had been imprisoned in Iran because of his Christian faith. I had met Saeed in 2002 when I had traveled to Iran from the USA as a missionary. We married in 2004 in Iran and moved to America in 2006. Saeed had been restless since our move to America and had started traveling back and forth to Iran from 2009 until 2012 when he was arrested by the Iranian government. I prayed and fasted for 5 months before going to media as his situation was becoming worse. I did not know how I was going to get Saeed out of one of the most dangerous prisons in the world.

My break came when an Iranian news reporter who was also a contributor at Fox News agreed to do an online article about Saeed on FoxNews.com. Before I knew it, I was being interviewed by multiple media outlets, speaking in front of the United Nations, the US Congress, the European Union and had met with President Obama and Donald Trump. I was hailed as a hero Christian wife not leaving any stone unturned to get my husband out of the Iranian prison.

What most did not know was that my husband had been abusive before his imprisonment and his abuse had continued from inside prison walls. Saeed had obtained a smuggled smart phone inside the Iranian prison two years into his sentence and his verbal abuse and threats continued. While I was hailed as a hero wife by many for trying so hard to get Saeed out of prison, Saeed was calling me names and making sure I knew that any attention that I was receiving was because of him. “Listen. Those crowds at the churches where you are speaking are clapping for me. Without me you are nothing. You are worthless,” Saeed said in one of his phone calls from prison. And I believed it. The verbal, emotional, psychological, and physical abuse throughout our marriage had made me become a shell of a person who was barely functioning.

Then three and a half years into Saeed’s imprisonment something happened. On October of 2015 I was speaking at a women’s conference in California. I was scheduled to speak the entire weekend. After my last scheduled speaking engagement on Sunday morning, a woman walked up to me and told me that God had laid on her heart to give me a diamond ring that her husband had given her on their 20th wedding anniversary.

“While I was sitting here listening to you,” she said, “I felt like God was telling me to give this to you. My husband gave me this ring for our twentieth anniversary. I asked him if it’d be okay to give it to you, and he has agreed. God told me to tell you that you are special.” “No, no, no,” I said. “I can’t accept this.” People sometimes got emotional when they hear accounts of persecution and want to give things away to help. My reflex was to reject the ring. “It is not for you,” she said. “It is for your daughter. Maybe you can give it to her when she gets older.”

In that moment, I knew I was to accept the ring. Her comment brought me back to my conversation with the Lord the previous day at the jewelry store in Boise as I was running some errands before my trip. In my conversation with the Lord, I had told Him how special it would be if some day Saeed would love me enough to buy me a ring from his own hard-earned money. Saeed had not even purchased our wedding ring. I had worked and purchased both of our rings. After praying that prayer to the Lord, I added that I hoped that one day I could get my daughter Rebekka a beautiful diamond ring before she was even married so that she would know that she was special because she belonged to Jesus and that she did not need to wait until her wedding day to wear a special ring. The diamond ring that this woman offered was not only an exact match of the ring that I had seen at the jewelry store in Boise, but the diamond was much bigger. It was a confirmation that God had heard my prayer.

The ring that I had wanted from Saeed, God had given to me. I was to pass the ring on to my daughter because she needed to know that she was special to her heavenly Father. I accepted the ring on Rebekka’s behalf, and I placed it on one of my fingers. Immediately, I felt many of my emotional and spiritual chains break free. I knew I was God’s daughter—I was the daughter of the King. In some countries in the Middle East when you mention your name you also mention whose daughter you are, for example, when filling out a form, I would write Naghmeh Panahi, daughter of Homayoun, my earthly father who I dearly loved. When my father passed away a few years ago and after my husband divorced me when he was released from prison, all the titles that were so dear to me and that had defined me were stripped away. Title of wife. Title of pastor’s wife. Title of daughter.

Through my journey of being set free from abuse, the old me didn’t survive. The old me found her value in earthly relationships and titles and believed in lies that had bound me, the new me found her identity in something that could never be taken away. An identity that set me free. When that ring was given to me, I knew who I was and through that knowledge a new me emerged. I was Naghmeh Panahi, the daughter of the King. That ring moment was the beginning of the journey to my freedom from abuse. I knew from that moment that I was the daughter of the King and that I belonged to God. His great love for me set me free from fear of my abuser and I started drawing firm boundaries with Saeed that did not allow him to continue his abuse of me. Years later as I continue to ponder the love of God, I am still amazed of God’s rescue of me. In the process of me trying to free Saeed from the Iranian prison, God was setting me free from abuse. When we cry out to God, He hears our cries, and He will provide a way out. His perfect love casts out all fear and sets us free to be who He has called us to be.

Psalms 18:6
In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.