I don't really know why, I felt the urge to share my story on reddit. This is my very first post, I might not post anything on anywhere else but I just wanted to share that one.
So, for my background: I was raised by my mother, who is an atheist (as far as I know, my whole family is atheist, but really respectful of everything like race, religion, opinions, etc, we just mind our own business). My father died when I was almost 2 years old and my mother had different boyfriends during me living with her. After some relational issues with her, I stopped talking to her 2 years ago, before I converted so nothing to do with islam, anyway. So I was an atheist for 21 years.
Since my whole family is atheist, I never really questionned the existence of a God, I never really looked into it. I knew religious people, muslims, catholics, bouddists etc but I never thought or talked about God. At some point in my life everything went wrong: life got pretty hard on me but Al hamdu lilah I'm safe. When getting out of a rough time I always said things like "I got here by myself, only I can save myself" etc etc because I was never aware that Allah was by my side: as I said I just never thought about any God whatsoever. I was thinking "Meh, science explains everything blah blah" never thinking that science and religion could go together.
But one day I read the last book of Stephen Hawking; Brief answers to the Big questions; and in it he discusses the potential existence of God. It wasn't the chapter that made me buy the book but definitely the one that I found most interesting. And basically what he says can be put down as: There was the Big Bang, the evolution, we come from animals etc etc etc, but the Big Bang had to be engaged by somthing: God. Well that is at least one part of his theory, he doesn't believe in God and explains why in the chapter but the theory of God creating the universe made so much more sense than the view I had on Adam and Eve. Don't get me wrong, I believe in Adam and Eve now, I was just always told God created the Earth, put Adam and Eve in there and poof, humanity. That's basically my insights on religion before I looked more into it.
Fast forward a few months, I still don't believe in God but Hawking's theory stays somewhere in my head. I come back from England to France (France is my native country, I stayed a few months in England) and from there starts a whole new rough time: coming back and re-acclimating to the hardship of French life was hard. I lived at my sister's house but eventually I had to leave because she has a family of her own: husband, kids, dog, house; they just couldn't afford me. I was thankfully accepted in a young workers home: I had a small room and bathroom of my own. I was a building shared with other young people, with common kitchen or a cafeteria, an office with social workers etc. I met a lot of great people. I arrived there in february and kept to myself. I had been a very lonely person for 2 years now and didn't want to change it. Went to work, came back home, spoke only to the social workers (they were very nice) and that was it. In March, a young woman moved in and one day she saw me going to the common kitchen and followed me. From there a friendship started. It was March, and in April it was Ramadan. I learned that she was a muslim, and during Ramadan, Faith is even more part of Muslim's lives; so I first started to know her, then lockdown and Ramadan came. So during Ramadan I was spending a lot of time with my friend, and, as I've always been veryyyy curious, I asked her a lot of questions: "Why do you fast" "Why do you pray 5 times a day" "Why do you do this, or that" etc etc and she was very happy to answer. A lot of people in my housing were fasting, and the cafeteria was opened during Ramadan at 3 am so Muslims could eat peacefully (Remember, no kitchens in the rooms). So I would go with her at 3am because she was scared to go downstairs alone, and we would talk and I would sometimes ask questions.
And then, I think it was after Ramadan, money started to run out, I lost my job because of lockdown and my allowance was getting to an end. I was looking for a job but hey, you know how it was right? I struggled. And with all the questions I've been asking to my friend, one day I thought: "Please, if there's a God, I need a little bit of money". Mind you, I've never been greedy, I was eating pasta with pasta for lunch and dinner, sometimes went a day without eating, my sister helped me, I was just struggling. And I kid you not, the day after that, THE DAY AFTER, I had money on my bank account, coming from litterally nowhere: I wasn't expecting anything but it came. And I was like "Meh, coincidence". Some time later I asked for a job, and the same day I had a call for an interview (I applied to a lot of things), and got the job a few days later. I asked quite a bit because, well I grew up an atheist, not believing for one second, and in a few weeks time I learn about islam, God, I ask and I get etc, it was really confusing. Then life settled, I started to think over stuff that happened in my life and saw Allah's prints, He, my Creator, has been there all along, I was just ignorant, because no one told me before. And I wanted to thank Him. I didn't know if I could keep up the Muslim path, way of life. I didn't mind not eating pork, I could barely afford meat anyway and was never a big fan of it but, the prayers, all the things to learn from scratch, the Qu'ran, the arabic words, when to say what (like Bismilleh, Al hamdu lilah, etc). And also the look of people: in France islam is quite badly seen: not so long ago France wanted to pass a law regarding the Hijab and banning it from public spaces etc, it was refused because it was going against the Constitution of Human Rights (to tell you how bad it is). But I thought and went over the idea and told myself "Allah gave you so so so much, without you knowing, without you thanking Him, and you're not gonna convert to islam, this beautiful religion, because you're afraid ?
And so on August, 3rd 2020 I went to the mosque with my dear friend and I converted in front of her and an Imam who explained to me different things, about religion and what it all meant. She cried, I was over joyed. And since then, I'm clearly not the perfect muslim but I just force myself to be a better version of myself with Allah and the Qu'ran as a guide, and I hope one day I'll feel good enough to wear the Hijab and follow the path of Allah. He gave me so much, and so much more than I could have asked for, the least I can do is try to be better.
I hope it can help people wondering why, or how you convert to islam, I hope Allah guides whoever needs to see this, and I wish the best for anyone reading this InShAllah, it was pretty long I'm sorry. :)
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