5th Group Therapy Session

Today the therapist asked the group if anyone wanted to know anyone else in the group better.  A girl said she wanted to know more about me, I suppose because I'm the newest member.  She asked how I met my husband.  Soooo...... I told them the entire crazy story from start to finish.  Normally, I either tell people that I met him while on vacation in Jerusalem, or that I married him as a favor to a friend to bring him into this country.  Neither of those things is true.  It started with a serious bout of depression.  I had just divorced my 1st husband.  I felt miserable, and wondered why every choice I had made in life up to that point had seemed to be the wrong choice.  I didn't believe in God, but I prayed that night in bed before falling asleep.  I asked God to tell me what to do to be happy and I would do it.  I would submit to his will (which always makes me think of Lucifer in Paradise Lost who says, "I will not submit.").  But I said I would do whatever he told me to do, and I meant it.  

That night I had a dream.  It was very vivid, and in the dream I was getting married.  I was entering a marriage that had been "arranged" for me by my friend Nasser at university.  I couldn't see the groom's face in the dream, but I felt so completely happy, no, joyful, that when I awoke, the feeling of joy lasted with me all day long.  That night I went to class and saw Nasser sitting in the courtyard.  I sat next to him and was very tempted to say, "Okay, who do you want me to marry?"  But not wanting to initiate such a thing, I talked about casual matters.  Within a few minutes, Nasser began to talk about his nephew, Fareed, who he thought would make an excellent match for me.  He asked me if I would write to him, and I instantly agreed.  Without the dream, I never would have considered such a thing.  My rational mind would have overruled that possibility immediately.  But knowing that I had told God that I would do whatever he/she told me to do if I only knew what it was... Well, to make a long story short, I flew to the Middle East a month later, met Fareed, and married him five days afterwards.  

I think the group was pretty stunned at my revelation.  Most American women do not have arranged marriages.  Most people do not take their dreams that seriously.  They said I took a huge risk, but at the time, I didn't feel my actions were risky at all.  I felt confident that the  universe would not steer me in the wrong direction.  In other words, I trusted some seemingly "outside force" much more than I trusted my own judgment.  And even though things don't seem to have worked out ideally, I think the universe was right in putting us together.  I can't imagine never having met him and never having loved him.  There seems to be such a purity of spirit in Fareed; I have faith in many things now because of him.