JOURNEY HOME - 2021-10-11 - NIKKI KINGSLEY

[Music] right [Music] well good evening and welcome to the journey home i'm marcus grodi your host for this program you know our guests come from a great variety of backgrounds paths though as i've mentioned many times on the journey home it's all the same fingerprints of the work of the holy spirit but in so many different ways so that's why it's always fascinating we hear somebody coming from a background that's not as expected not the not the usual suspects as they might say because our guest tonight is a former muslim nikki kingsley is our guest and i want to just mention right off the bat that nikki's website is nikki kingsley.com because she's going to mention a book that you can find on that about her journey nikki welcome to the journey hall great to be here marcus thank you and looking forward so much to hearing your story because i have a feeling it's not as i said not the usual suspects as is we're used to hearing angle guns and baptists in the whole nine yards that are so similar but you come from a wow completely different paradigm shift so let's hear how you started your journey well it certainly was a big change so i was born in pakistan and in a muslim family and in islam there are two main sects so there's the shia and the sunni sect and i come from from the shia sac and within that also there are many denominations and i come from the most liberal sect of the shia branch and i'm one of three sisters and when i was four years old we moved to africa and that's where i grew up i did all my schooling there from you know kindergarten all the way to high school and attended the american school the international schools there and um life was wonderful it was simple in africa we had like predominantly muslim area um no not not necessarily we lived in different parts we lived in tanzania and so there were a lot of christians there but we were raised in a very sheltered home our parents very kind very loving taught us to be you know loving kind to everybody it was more about being a good person than really practicing the prayers and the rituals of islam so my sister did you have a belief in god oh yeah yeah we knew we were muslim and we knew that that's what we were born that's what we're going to die that's the way to be but my parents didn't really focus so much on doing the prayers and reading the quran it was more about being kind to everybody loving everybody but knowing we're muslim and also the culture of islam is a lot of respect for your parents and your parents are always right you do you know you honor them respect them and my sisters and i were raised that way so whatever my parents said is whatever was was right and so we grew up in that way practicing islam in a very open kind of way not so much as praying the namaz or doing anything like that and because life was so simple we had no telephone we had no tv you know but lots of friends and so i started reading a lot i would read a lot of books and that was really my window into the world it helped me see the world through the books and i you know i started with um mysteries and graduated to romance novels as i grew up and um i you know that was that was the world i created in my mind [Music] and it was um i mean that's fascinating itself to think of creating a world out of those books right because we didn't really see much more now we did travel we would go to pakistan every year we would go to we came to america every year also to visit on vacation because we had family and but we were always happy to go back to africa because that was home and life was just simple and you know we we loved it there and when i was 16 my parents arranged my marriage and i didn't really object because that's how we were raised you know we were raised not to really think about a career who we wanted to be but more of being a good wife and a good mother and that was going to be you know the mission but that didn't that didn't sound like i would have rung with your romance novels no but but you know it kind of did because i i imagined him to be this knight in shining armor and you know i could knit whatever story i wanted and and because of the obedience part two yeah it was that's how i was raised so i didn't really object to it when i came this was when i was a sophomore in high school when my marriage was arranged and when i was close to graduating high school is when i started to feel like i want to go to college i want to to explore who i can be but i was told that i wasn't possible and you know because you're not married yet no no that's true yeah that was going to come up very soon and so when i you know any amount of crying wasn't going to change that so you know i went back to my romance novels and just you know dreamt of this knight in shining armor and what this marriage was going to be and so we went back to pakistan and i was married and my parents flew back to africa and now i was in pakistan the country i was born in but hadn't really lived in living with a new family because the culture is that you live with your in-laws uh with your husband's parents and he was sunni and i was shia and that's when i got my first culture shock i was gonna say that a lot of the audience are not going to visualize or feel for the radical difference between those two groups right yeah so the sunni um are more you know like the quran and prophet muhammad and that is all that they focus on more fundamentalists and and like i said the shias do too of course you know believe all that but like i said i came from a more liberal kind of branch and i hadn't really practiced it even though i believed with all my heart in islam and so i i went through a culture shock you know now my mother-in-law is praying five times a day and they would look at me like you know what kind of a pagan was i you know and so i i started to learn very quickly you know how to pray and you know do the ritual cleansing and everything that is necessary unfortunately my husband was not the knight in shining armor and it you know that dream kind of shattered the day after my marriage and so i turned to god desperately at that point and i thought because in islam you know you serve god he is the master and you are this being on earth that you just beg him for mercy forgiveness and and you worship him and so i thought my only way out of this was going to be by prayer if i could get allah's attention on me he was going to save me because divorce was not an option that would bring shame on my family that was just not done and i had two younger sisters who would marry them and so i had to survive this and i was 18 years old i had my whole life ahead of me and i was in a country where it was male dominated and so was a very difficult time and so i started reading the quran and in the quran there is a chapter dedicated to the virgin mary and when i came across that chapter it's called surah maryam maryam is you know the name for mary i was just so drawn to this beautiful woman who was so holy and so pious and she's the only woman that has a chapter dedicated to her and i was just so drawn to her i fell in love with her and i would read that chapter every single day and i was pregnant with my daughter at that time and i just asked that my child would be as holy as this woman was and so and i of course i was begging god to do a miracle and get me out of pakistan so i could have you know some freedom and so my daughter was born and shortly after that allah heard my prayer and we moved to the middle east we moved to the united arab emirates and so that's where i live for the next 10 years my son was born there and i was practicing islam and more so now you know the more more the sunni way because that's the family i'd been married into and unfortunately things weren't going well in my marriage it didn't get any better even though moving to the uae was better because i had a little bit of freedom i wasn't living with my in-laws and so as things got worse with the marriage and now i have two children i got very depressed and suicidal it just and started to affect my health and through all this i had been telling my parents i was unhappy i didn't want to stay anymore and they kept telling me you have to grow up life is a compromise you know they thought i just wasn't mature enough well it got so bad and i was getting suicidal so i did tell my dad about that one day over the phone and that's when they took notice and they thought okay this is serious and so my dad decided to help me and he sent me money to buy a ticket for my kids and myself and because i told him i wanted to come to america and i just felt in my heart that that was the one place if i came to america i would get freedom and to me it was like a city set up on a hill with the light shining on it if i could just make it there i'd be okay and so my dad sent me some money and i planned to get away from there i didn't tell my husband i was leaving with plans of not coming back because i was afraid he would take the kids from me and i would be trapped and i would never be able to leave so in a way it was an escape from there and i managed you know was stressful i didn't know until the plane took off if i would really make it because all he had to do was call the airport that she's leaving with my kids and they would have stopped me and it's when i landed in new york that i could finally breathe because i sat on the whole flight holding both my kids close to me and i had a daughter and i didn't want her to to have a life yeah go through the same thing i wanted her to have an opportunity to live and have an education so i arrived i made it to the city set up on a hill and i landed in the united states and with my two children i had a couple hundred dollars and two kids no work experience i didn't know how to drive were you very good at english at that point well i grew up speaking english because american schools and you know so so i could speak english but you know i didn't understand the dia you know i would people would talk to me in english but i didn't know what they were saying because they would make references to different things and i didn't grow up here so i wouldn't understand anything especially if you land in new york right right certain parts of new york you can't understand what they're saying anyway so it was a challenge and you know i came looking for freedom but when i got the freedom it was overwhelming because i did want freedom but it was too much and so that was an adjustment too our guest is nikki kingsley uh you know those of us who lived in the united states our life probably can't even imagine what it would be like to come from not just a foreign country but such a different culture into new york city yeah yeah yeah did you get any help quite your family well i said you had something here yes and god bless them they welcomed me in their home and my uncle helped me find a job and he taught me how to drive and my first job was in sales and all it required was driving and i didn't even have a driver's license so but i had two children and i had to make it and you know and the company that hired me sponsored me and i you know went through the whole legal system of getting a visa and everything and so i started a new life i got my first apartment got my first car and got the kids in school and you know and slowly got got on my feet and settled in and throughout god had been very important to me you know so my prayer life was as a muslim i was very very devoted to allah and i wanted to do everything to make sure he was pleased when you when you arrived here and you became acclimated were were you able to become involved in the muslim community because yes because of what had happened in your decision yeah because now i was in america the thinking was a little bit different so you know people were more accepting of that and it took me about two years to to get a divorce and you know that's why i've written a book there's so many details i couldn't even you know start going into but i finally was able to get a divorce all my friends were muslims which we would call moderate muslims you know assimilated with the culture peace loving you know all that but very devout muslims you know we fasted in ramadan we prayed the prayed five times a day read the quran did everything and made sure my kids had a quran teacher i wanted to make sure my children would not go astray that i came to this country and i didn't want to lose the faith because i i believed in it and so i was doing everything i could and what happened marcus was i had been worshiping allah and begging him for 15 years to save me and now that i was in america and i was kind of living a free and a normal life my prayer changed i instead of just begging him to save me i started asking him who he was i wanted to know him i wasn't satisfied just doing the rituals because i knew deep in my heart there was more and i knew i didn't have it i knew there was more but i didn't have it yet and i wanted it at all cost and truth was something that's been very very important to me even as a little girl talking to my parents or if i hear a conversation and if my parents said something i'd be like wait a minute but that's not exactly true because so and so said it this one you just you know so i would just nitpick about truth it had and once i had that figure then i was like okay now this conversation is fully true so truth was just this driving force in my life about everything and so when i started seeking god i was seeking truth and i knew there was more to allah and i didn't have it so i would pray and i would be prostrate on the prayer mat for a long time of face down crying out to allah to reveal himself to me and i would get an image in my head and i would see a wall and i would see darkness and there would be silence i got nothing back i would look online looking for books to grow in my faith to know and i really i couldn't find anything other than the punishment in the grave of course the quran which i was reading the life of muhammad or poetry but nothing to help me grow in spirituality and so i was frustrated so i just turned back to the quran and i would read that and i would just pray and ask allah for guidance and i would hear nothing so i'm interrupting because you're a muslim you had some christian influence because in places where you were there was some american influence but then you land in the united states and a lot of us think we're a christian nation right but you land here right and you live for a couple years until you've got and i'm wondering was our nation were we a good witness to you because it sounds like you weren't being lured away from your muslim faith at all by what you found here well you know that was the one thing i've realized nobody witnessed to me nobody did and i'd come here on vacation but it's like in the quest to be so politically correct we don't say the word of jesus because we're trying to be understanding for the other but in the process we've become mute about the truth for what you know what drives us and no nobody did and but at the same time my um all my friends were muslim i had not one christian i made i had created my own world within america that was comfortable because islam was such a big part of my life culture how we are as a family and so you know i i was seeking but i was hearing nothing and i would tell my friends all muslim friends when we would get together and i would bring up these thoughts that you know i really want to know there's more to allah i want to to know him and i and they would look at me like i'm a cr i'm crazy and say what more do you want you're praying you're fasting you're what more do you want and at this point i'm more religious than my parents are you know practicing and i said but there's more i want i want to know him what i was seeking was a relationship i just didn't know that so anyway um i went into st patrick's cathedral one day and this was just a trip advisor you know thing it wasn't like i was seeking anything more i had never researched uh christianity i had no interest in anything but islam so i was seeking allah in the islamic box i had strict boundaries where i was going to find my answers so i walked into st patrick's cathedral just you know to look at it like a tourist and i walked in and the first thing that hit me there was a stained glass picture you know of jesus that was kind of suspended and i saw his face and it's like his eyes were alive and they just looked right into me and it made me very uncomfortable and so i walked around and part of me was feeling like i was sinning because in islam you don't have idols i just stepped into a church and you know so i was going through a lot of turmoil within and now i felt as jesus was following me and st patrick's cathedral was magnificent it was just so beautiful and i just walked around admiring it but afraid at the same time and jesus following me and so i walked around admired everything and near the exit is the little gift shop so i stopped there the kids were with me and all of a sudden i heard a woman's voice in my ear my left ear the most sweetest voice and she said come back come back and i looked and there was nobody there and i'm thinking okay this is not happening so i ignored it and then again that whisper and then i knew it was mary and standing in there i didn't think maryam that the word was mary it's her and i had loved her as a muslim and so i couldn't just ignore her and walk out and when the words came come back was she told me exactly where she was calling me to her chapel at the back of saint patrick's she was calling me to her chapel and so i went back because i couldn't ignore her i loved her so much and so i went into her chapel and i stood there because i wasn't going to kneel i'm a muslim and i stood and i asked her what do you want and i heard nothing but i felt such a peace and you know i came back there i was there um in new york city for like three days every day i had to come back to the chapel i felt i couldn't i could not you know i had to go there and just get that peace a lot of viewers may not realize that within muslim jesus is a part of the story but a different understanding of jesus so jesus is a prophet the mother of um the virgin mary maryam the son of the yes the son of the virgin mary and he is um human fully human he had the gift of healing and he was born and he died and he you know he'll come at the end of time but there is no uh divinity linked to him at all he is a prophet with the gift of healing so seeing the the portrait of of jesus and sensing his eyes didn't really be a break from a muslim background no there's something special about him right but it it unsettled me because it felt like he was alive you know is what what got me and you know in islam it is a virgin birth so that is accepted and um but at least get away from our lady no but it was her who was more close to me at that you know i didn't really feel jesus but it was uh or the prophet issa but it was more maryam you know mary and and because it was her who called me i couldn't turn away and so i did that um you know went back for next few days heard nothing more nothing else happened and i i just you know life went on back to normal and i just thought well you know mariam i loved her and you know just a nice experience and that was it and life went on i fasted ramadan came and everything this was in the springtime when i was in at st patrick and then it was december and the first week of december comes around and i was asleep and you know when you are deep asleep and somebody gently kind of shakes you and you're kind of between the sleeping and the waking that's the kind of i felt somebody kind of just shook me a little and i kind of was half awake i could tell the sun was just rising and jesus and mary were at my bedside and well it was it was just beyond words it was like heaven had come into the room and and they prayed with me and we discussed my whole life from the moment even before my conception it's like it we had had this discussion of what my life was going to be in heaven and now they were reminding me and and and the joy that filled my heart it's like my spirit was dancing and my body i knew was still on the bed but my spirit was not and i i was dancing embracing and we prayed and as this was happening a light was being infused into me and when i woke up that morning i was no longer the same person i i was changed and that i knew deep in me but in my head started this struggle of what that can't be that must have been a dream but it was like i knew it wasn't i physically had experienced this and and then i felt the presence come over me from the day after and it was god it was holy i knew that but in my head i couldn't fit it in my muslim body that's what i was it was in my mind it was a police too did as they would say did you have the right file folders in there to put it and where they had no labeled folders all i had was islam and everything had to go in there and i didn't know where to put this and um but the presence that came over me was like a bubble and it was with me all the time and i'd lived in the same house for a few years now driven down the same road to go to work i had no idea how many churches were on that road because i was blind i didn't want us i didn't care and all i could see after that i noticed every church and i noticed every cross that was on that street and i'm looking and thinking i had no idea like i truly was blind but now i could see well so definitely getting the fingerprints of the holy spirit touching god why don't we take our break now because i want you to have time to come back and expand on that a little bit because we want to rush you with the break so we'll pause just a second nikki and again i want to remind you that nikki has a website nicki kingsley.com or if you go there you can get connected with her book which gives a more detailed expression of her story back in just a moment [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home i'm your host marcus grodi and our guest is nikki kingsley kingsley uh i interrupted you you were right telling us something really really significant and that is all you're down this you're walking down the street you've walked through a hundred times so that old song from from um uh you know i've walked the street i thought you know but all of a sudden you're seeing things right that had always been there but you never saw before yeah i'd lived in this on the same street for years now and i would drive the same way to work and i had never noticed how many churches were on that street and as i'm driving my attention would be drawn i would see the church and i would see the cross and it's like this light would shine on the cross and you know it's like how could i have not noticed all these churches or if i went into a store and if there was a bible in the store or anything that was related to christianity it's my attention would be taken i would notice it it would be like a light shining on it and the voice would say look and i couldn't get away from it it was constant and now you know you have to remember i'm in a in my muslim mindset and to me this is very scary because you know i i have no desire to be anything but a muslim and why is my attention being taken to these christian symbols i didn't want it so i started to go through a struggle within my mind and i started to have dreams and visions after that and every dream every vision every interior voice everything was christian related it would be jesus it would be mary and it had nothing to do with islam and it really scared me and then i got angry i got angry with god because i thought allah i have been praying for all this time prostrate hours praying to you asking to reveal yourself to me draw me closer to you and now you send me jesus and mary why didn't you send me muhammad because that would make sense to me that you are answering my prayer but i knew it was god who was doing that like i didn't question that i could feel god's presence but it didn't make sense to me that why i would and i was afraid because i believed christians um were going to go to hell because they believed in a son of god and god allah had was the only one you know there he had no children he was not begotten and now i'm seeing this jesus and it started to really scare me and the jesus that would come to me and i would feel his presence and he would show up in a dream was not a man there was power that came from him and there was authority that came from him he was not like a you know prophet isa that's you know as a muslim i believe who had died and now i'm seeing him in a dream it it was not that he was alive i could feel he was alive and there was an authority that he came with and and i remember in one dream the love that came out of him was so intense that in my dream i was i was dying because i could barely take the love it was all centered on love and i couldn't deny that he was more than a person and that was my struggle as a muslim now i refuse to research christianity on the internet because i don't want to feed into what's happening i was trying to reject it i didn't want to research it i didn't want to read the bible because i was scared if i got into it where it would take me so i was rejecting everything i could i'm like okay i'm just gonna this was going to be between me and god there was going to be nobody's research nothing so i didn't do anything and this continued with me for a year and a half and i was taken down this road where um and and when mary would call me and i would you know she would ask me to go to a certain place that was christian of course and one was like an outdoor shrine and i parked my car i was so angry because i had had enough of these dreams and visions i wanted these to stop so i could go back to my muslim world i was getting exhausted and i remember coming up you know getting out of the car slamming the door shut and there was a statue of mary and i stood in front of her and said what do you want from me why are you doing this to me and i physically felt these hands on me turning me to the other side and when i looked there there was the statue of the sacred heart of jesus and when i looked at him i couldn't stop looking at him i thought i was going to melt all i could feel was love so when i asked her what do you want she turned me to her son and i started to go to that outdoor shrine every day and i wouldn't go to her anymore i was going to the statue of jesus i'd spent hours there and all i would you know i was trying to reject him but i couldn't leave him either there was this draw to him and this continued long story again and finally i'm curious the it isn't just jesus it's jesus with the sacred heart yeah i wonder how you well i didn't know what that meant today i can tell you it was a sacred heart but at the time at that time it was just jesus pointing to his heart and in my like i said in my you know i've had dreams where the love is so intense i could just die so he's pointing to his heart and all i could feel was love and so it there was a lady who i knew at work and she was the only one i started to share what was happening these dreams and visions and she just looked at me and said oh my gosh you are so blessed you need to come to my church now she's christian this lady at work no i mean i don't know i didn't know denominations i could care less i just knew she was christian i was telling her what was happening to me and she said you have to come to my church you are so blessed i said i don't want to go to a church why would i go to a church i'm trying to get away from this and so but you know it it continued so much and it came where it was december it was christmas time and i had gotten to a point where i wanted an answer from jesus and i wanted to be done and i said okay i will go to a church i didn't tell my friend because i don't want pressure i thought i'll go to a church on my own for christmas and i am going to ask jesus because the church is his home what he wants from me and i want to be done with this and so i went to a christmas midnight service to a church down the road from my house to me a church was a church i didn't know denomination and it was a christian church and i i went in and there was a you know a service and pastor did the reading they passed a tray around with you know little cops and i i participated in everything and i was waiting for because jesus was going to tell me what he wants from me that was my deal for coming in the church and it ended and we processed out with candles singing and it was a beautiful service i could feel the love it was wonderful people were welcoming and i had taken this big step for jesus and i came out and i was so disappointed because he wasn't there i felt this emptiness in my heart because i knew what his presence would feel like i just how i don't i just knew and i walked out thinking jesus you're not even in your own church like that's how it felt you weren't there and i came looking for you for an answer so now where am i going to go i am i don't know what to do because i want to end this you know i want a closure to this so i told my friend i said you know i went to a church and there was wasn't there and she said she asked me where and i told her and she said just please come to my church and i said debbie what difference does it make what church i go to a church is a church she said no just please come to my church and i was desperate i said okay i'll come to your church but i'm not doing a service again and spending all this time there i'd you know just take me when no one's there i'll know if he's really there and then you know so let's not waste time so one morning i go with her on a weekday like you know walk in nobody's there i took my first step in it was a catholic church and to me what's a catholic church is just a church right and i took my first step in and i took a breath and i said he lives here i can feel him i felt physically his presence and i had no idea the difference between the other church and this church was just a church and i just sat down i'm like okay i finally found your home now you're going to tell me what you want from me why are you doing this to me and from that day i started going to that catholic church every day when no one was there and i would sit in the back pew alone and i would argue with the crucifix and i would tell him every day every day i was there you're not the son of god because there is no son of god what do you want from me why are you doing this to me i would be angry i would say it all and when i was done with my angry rant and then i would tell him about my day and i would tell him about you know what i was going through with the kids my daughter is a teenager now my struggles with everything and i would leave and i'd show up the next day and do the same thing and tell him you know he's not the son of god and i did this for months the worst the day i least cared for was sunday because sunday i couldn't go because they had people in the church so i couldn't wait for monday so i could go and be alone with him and do my you know angry thing and then spend time with him and i'd walk out at peace and i'd show up the next day wanting telling him he can't be the son of god and so this went on for months and finally one day god had had enough i think of me and i walked in sat down did the same thing last pew and that day i heard the audible voice of god echo in that church i heard it with my ears and he said to me who are you to tell me who i can be and cannot be if you really want to know the truth go and come back like a child and i will tell you the truth sounds like he was talking to job you know what i mean yes yes and you know it's true who was i to say you know god you can't have a son because because what he if he's god who was i to say that because that's what i'd grown up knowing but i couldn't tell god that and he gave me a choice if you want the truth it was an invitation there was no compulsion there was no force it was freedom if you want the truth then you can come back like a child which is willing to listen instead of telling him and he gave me a promise i will tell you the truth and so i went back of course i had to and i sat down and i emptied my mind i had to i had to know the truth he had taken me on this journey and i sat down and i said tell me and i emptied my mind and i was 40 years old i had to empty it of everything i had learned as a muslim my fears everything and when i did that a bolt of light came from that crucifix and it hit my heart it went through my body and i shook and i collapsed on my knees because jesus was right in front of me and i knew everything and all i could saw about was i believe i believe you are the son of god i believe because at the name of jesus every knee shall bend and every tongue proclaim that he is lord to the glory of god the father and when he stood in front of me there was not a question it wasn't a philosophy of truth it wasn't an ideology he is the truth i was thinking that you had said earlier that you didn't go to the internet you didn't do this no and on the one hand we're saying well where'd you get this information from but in some ways you were you were protected from all the gazillions yes voices of all the things i am so thankful for that because this was just coming straight from him and there was so much love that came and when i accepted jesus in that moment on my knees crying that wall that i would see as a muslim that was always before me came crashing down in front of my eyes and behind the wall was god the father and i met him and his love for me and it was so powerful i thought i was going to fall over with the love the waves of love and he said i have waited so long for you and i met my father in heaven but i could only do it not father but your what do you say in your my baba yeah i call him my baba in your language yes that's the word that always rises up when i think of him as baba and but i couldn't meet the father without the son because it's only through the son that i came into relationship i knew god before i loved god before but it's like living outside the castle and the king is in the castle and the only way in i could live as a slave on the outside and still love the king or i could come inside be adopted as his daughter the only way in was through the sun the sun stands at the doorway to the castle and is there to welcome us if you want a relationship with baba or we can stay outside and worship god but never have a relationship so you have this unbelievable but i don't mean that in a negative sense but you know unexpected yes you know encounter with the lord so there you are in the church and that's safe but you got to go back to reality yes i did and that was the hard part i was going to hurt my parents and i knew i couldn't live a lo a fake life i couldn't live as a muslim and jesus as my lord because that's who he was he showed me that and at this point all you have is what you've been infused into you don't have any catechism nothing and uh and i decided i had to become a catholic and of course i had to tell my parents and they said well you can you can go to church they could see there's that i wasn't just going to change my mind and they said well but you really have to convert don't convert just go that's fine and i said i have found the truth and i will live the truth now because he came to set us free in the truth and those who will deny me i'll deny his what he says and i've read all this after yeah i didn't know it's but when i read the bible it's like i know this because he's shown this to me it was a familiar voice when you read the bible yeah it was the when i was looking reading love stories and mysteries marcus i had no idea the greatest love story is with god the father with jesus that he died for us out of love there is no greater love story that has ever been written than that and there is no greater mystery because faith is not something that you put in in your mind and you know you understand you have to accept it's a mystery and you have to live in that mystery every day the greatest love story in mystery so when you uh you're talking about our lord being the the gatekeeper if you will bring into the into baba the father but you had had this relationship with our lady for so long where was she now in this oh my goodness she has always she's been there whenever i feel a little lost or anything she shows up but then she sends me back to her son she is she her biggest desire is that for her children all children to know her son and through knowing her son come into relationship with god the father and that's what she's done with me my whole journey even before i knew jesus she was there and that is what she desires and i've also been shown again that my stuff is all mystical in visions that our lady loves the muslim people i have seen it she has such a love she's their mother too and she longs for them to experience the love of of her son and the father and jesus too he loves the muslim you know jesus said i desire father that they're all one just as you and i are one and it's not just one within the christian faith one as all you know it's like a father who wants all his children at the table with him no matter where they've been they're welcome to come to the table i'm admittedly not a great scholar on fatima but it seems that what i've heard about that just the reality of fatima was a movement by our lord to to open the doors for this movement of unity i personally believe that the conversion that is going to come with the muslim people is going to be through the love of our lady because archbishop fulton sheen has said that those who love our lady so much will one day come to know her son because if you love her she will put your hand in her son's hand and and you will enter into that greatest love story you obviously received an awful lot of information in in your infused experience but you've come to know the faith extremely well how did you go from there you know to oh my goodness i i couldn't i was looking up different um you know saints you know and their conversions and their stories and i just couldn't get enough because as a muslim i was thirsting for that and in the catholic church i have found so much that has helped me grow and just these and i think the saints have touched me the most because they are they showed it by the way they lived their life and the eucharist oh my goodness how did i know as a muslim walking in is there any you know like from judaism to the christianity there's a connection passover to the eucharist is there any connection from muslim to the eucharist you know what i'm saying no nothing no i not that i know or understand no i didn't know and then i started attending mass and it's been 12 years now and this is what i whenever you know i tell myself it's been 12 years and you know we can as human beings we can get bored very quickly with the repetitive same thing 12 years later i have more thirst for communion with jesus it just can't be a piece of bread to keep us coming back for more for more and that desire and that longing to be one with him and in my head when the priest elevates the host i'm like really that's eugene how can that be but i submit to the mystery because i know the fruit it has borne in my life you mentioned that your your parents were at least you know giving you a nudge to move forward right what about your daughters and your other family members have they responded to me yeah both my children are have come into the catholic church out of their own free will and one of my sisters has had her own mystical experience with the lord two years after me and she came into the catholic church there have been other family members who have had these experiences with jesus that started so it's like you know i thought okay i came into the church and i thought that was it but jesus has such a big plan you know so much bigger than what we can even imagine it's for salvation of the whole world you know it fascinates me uh nikki i had the privilege of doing a number of interviews with former muslims and it it's interesting that often the journeys of muslims involve more of the mystical side yes and that's interesting to me is that the muslim background that make allows you or encourage you to take dreams more seriously that open you up either way any idea i thought about that and i think because like in and i think that is in general with islam there's a lot of fear because nobody wants to go to hell and muslims also trying to you know please god because that's what i was trying to do and there was no place for i wasn't willing to listen to anybody's argument because even doing that i'm afraid of going to hell because i'm entertaining that conversation and i think jesus has had to by step that he had to just like okay let's put your brain on the side and i'm going to speak to you in a much deeper way and we encounter him and you can't deny an encounter you can argue away stuff in your head but you can't deny that personal encounter you know in the psalm it says taste and see that the lord is good you have to taste it you put a steak in front of somebody and describe it you don't know what it tastes like until you take a bite and our lord does say by their fruit you will know that yes so whether it's an intellectual conversion yes or whether it's a mystical conversion still the end result is does it make a difference in your life right you have to love it you have to live it and i can tell you i've suffered a lot since my conversion trial after trial but i have fallen more in love with jesus because of that because he's shown me he's faithful yeah oh what i mean you've been gifted by grace to open your heart to so many things of the faith what was the hardest thing even after all of that as you come into the church what was the hardest barrier for to continue working on you know the the beauty of it is i've had no barrier with the catholic church none no matter what even when the scandals were happening i it didn't make a difference to me because i knew the true church is still the rock but the biggest barrier to christianity i mean that's where i struggled the most was accepting the divinity of christ i mean that was the hardest thing for me and then not only that there's a trinity now there's three you know so that that was the biggest struggle for me yeah you talked about the father and our son and our lady but the holy spirit wasn't kind of mentioned in that that initial journey but but he was the one making it happen absolutely when i felt you know the shaking and the power over me and all those that's the holy spirit i just didn't know the names at that point well i often end the program by inviting you to speak to a potential muslim sitting right out there let's say that right now just happened in a hotel room a muslim turned on this program and is watching you and you know it doesn't have the file folders right what would you say to that well i would tell them that um open the box and seek the truth because once you have the truth you everything else will work out because you will encounter peace like you have never had before so just get down on your knees and ask for the truth without any boundaries because god is way bigger than us and he can't be put into a box and if you seek you will find if you ask for the truth you will get it but the only requirement is you have to lay down your boundaries put that folder aside well not everyone will be granted the gift of of the of the spiritual side you have but newman made a statement about to become deep in history as a cease to be protestant would you say that's true for muslims too say that again to become deep in history right is to cease to be protestant would you say that by coming deeper in history also for a muslim would draw them to see the reality of the truth of history to help them see the reality of christianity yes i think possibly but i really think that god will speak to each person to their heart and i think if you open your heart and maybe even to walk into a church when no one is there and ask are you really because that's what i did i argued with him and don't be afraid to tell god your fears he won't strike you with lightning he is so loving and he wants a relationship with each person as a father all right nikki thank you very much thank you for joining us on the journey home and your website again is nick nikki kingsley nikki kingsley.com and if a person goes to that they'll find out more about your book and other things that you're doing sure all right thank you thank you thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home i do pray that nikki's journey and a reality of a relationship with jesus christ and his church is an encouragement to you god bless you [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 272,298

Keywords: jht, jht01746, ytsync-en

Id: eiRZhQ-n3FY

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 11 2021