Sorry in advance if this gets too long, currently 1am in the morning & my brain won’t shut off, so here we go I guess; I’m a 15 year old British Muslim born in Sheffield, my late mother was also a Muslim, born in Lahore, Pakistan, unfortunately she passed away when I was 13. My father was an atheist, but converted to Islam to be with my mother, unfortunately he too died when I was 8 years old, fighting in Afghanistan (operation Herrick) he was one of the many Royal Marines sent there for Aid, I now live with my mothers side of the family, as nobody knows anything about my dads side of the family and nobody’s ever met my dads parents or siblings if he even has any 🤷*♂️, What I really wanted to say today was that, I’ve been through hell for most of my life , moving from here to there, getting involved with drugs, alcohol & gangs, but not so long ago my cousin & her husband took me in (which I highly appreciate) and moved to Manchester, I’ve had a lot of time to think & ultimately, I started wondering if Islam is really what I believe in and what my parents would think if i decided otherwise, but I’ve decided that, really, it’s my life & i want to live it to its fullest and believe what I have faith in, I’ve read a lot about Christianity, I secretly went to church to see what it’s like, I cannot express in words what I felt the first time I prayed to god in church, i suddenly felt a strong bond, almost like a connection. From that moment onwards I knew I wanted to be a Christian, it all just makes sense to me, and I believe Jesus Christ guided me to him, and showed me the light. Now this all may sound very wonderful and glorious, but now the only problem I face is telling my auntie and my cousin, which are all very very religious Muslims, and always tell me stuff like ‘when you grow up we will take you to umra, then we will move back to our home country (Pakistan)’ I always get uncomfortable and anxious when they say that, as frankly I really do not want to move to Pakistan, like ever, I was born on British soil & I hope to die on british soil, but I just don’t have enough courage to say that to them, never mind tell them that I no longer want to follow Islam, I couldn’t bare to think what their reaction would be 😬 I honestly don’t know what to do ... don’t know if this would help but I’m thinking of joining the royal marine commandos as soon as I turn 18, I’m already physically fit & my mind has been through enough to have the ‘state of mind’, I tried talking to my cousin about this and she Freaked out, saying stuff like she will never let me end up like my farther, and that if I am going to join she will never let me join the British armed forces, she will only let me join the Pakistani armed forces, why on earth would I spend all my life in britain, then decide to fight for a completely different country ? That makes
no sense to me. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Thomas.