“Maybe, just maybe this month I’ll get pregnant. I took all these pills.”
“Shahang,” a very weary young lady, began pouring her heart out to me within five minutes of us meeting. She had left her home, to be in the peace and quiet of her mother’s home. Shahang has been married for a year and it’s culturally normal to still be living with her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law fusses at her son because Shahang has not yet become pregnant. So he also, because of his mother’s pressure, causes lots of problems for his wife. Within a 30 minute visit, he called her four times scolding her to return home.
Shahang pulled out all of the ultrasound pictures, doctor’s reports, tests, and empty medicine packets to show me. My lap was full as I looked at all of them and realized how desperate she was to have a child. She seems to be healthy and fine and no reason why she can’t get pregnant. She desires to have a child to make her husband and mother-in-law happy. They will in turn make life easier for her. I shared with her the story of Hana and asked if I could pray for her. She agreed, but returned her paperwork to the cabinet.
She returned with an engagement picture of herself. I looked at it and returned it to her. She paused and gazed at it. I asked what she was thinking. Her answer revealed more of her misery. She said, “Where is this person? Look at me now and look at this picture. Look how ugly I am now and how skinny I am.” With tears in her eyes, she asked “What happened to this person?” Later she told me, “Many times I thought about ending my life with a gun.” We talked about God being an all-powerful God and that his door is always open to hear our problems. God will take her burdens if she will give them to him. She begged me to pray for her, which I did. In the middle of praying her husband called once again. He had sent a relative, waiting at her mother’s door, to pick her up and bring her back home.
Just a few days ago, I visited with her again. She brought a medicine packet to me. “Maybe, just maybe this month I’ll get pregnant. I took all these pills. What are they?” I turned it over and discovered that it was just a packet of folic acid. I told her it was just vitamins. She was frustrated, because she had hoped so much that this was going to be a special medicine.
The pressure for Kurdish ladies to get pregnant within the first few months of marriage is immense. Not to mention the importance of having a son in this culture.
Pray for Shahang as I continue to share with her as God gives me opportunties. She desires to read the stories of J for herself. Thankfully she is educated and can read. Pray as I love on her and her family, that she will see the light amidst the great darkness.
