Gratitude: Chosen, Not Rejected

I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. (Isaiah 41:9).

Isaiah 41:9

…For I have chosen you and have not thrown you away.

Isaiah 41:9b, NLT

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

Acts 16:25

The verse they inscribed in my book was Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

They certainly lived this verse. In fact, they demonstrated its primacy in their hearts by risking their very lives to distribute the gospel as widely as possible in their home country of Iran.

Marziyeh Amirizadah and Maryam Rostampour tell their incredible story of courage and persecution in the book, Captive in Iran (Tyndale: 2013). For over three years, under cover of darkness, while the city was sleeping, they put New Testaments in the hands of more than twenty thousand people.

During that time, Marziyeh and Maryam started two secret house churches, one for prostitutes. In 2009, the two women were arrested and placed in the infamous Evin Prison, known for its torture and swift executions.

They found themselves thrown into an area of the prison designated for women only. A throw-away place. A place for those rejected and expelled, ashamed.

A perfect place for a new church.

I asked them how they bore the suffering of their fellow inmates. How did they carry the horror, the pain, the injustice, without being crushed by it? After all, they faced a death sentence and experienced extreme suffering themselves. How could they help the women around them, the discarded and rejected within that society, without ultimately being crushed? My heart felt smothered just thinking about it.

“We never tried.” Marziyeh blinked innocently, looking at me with luminescent eyes that shimmered with a peaceful light attainable only through the fires of persecution. 

“We just took them to Jesus,” Maryam added simply.

It was not complicated. They never even tried to carry the unbearable spiritual, emotional, mental and physical burdens of their fellow inmates. Marziyeh and Maryam knew their own limits, their humanness. They took the broken ones around them immediately to the One who has no limits. The One who became human that we might know His rest.

I imagine had I been in their shoes I would have become immobilized with the pain of my inmates, transfixed on my inability to fix the system, the people, the hate, and everything else that leads to rejection and devaluing of humans.

Maryam and Marziyeh taught me a lesson of immeasurable worth. We are not the saviors of humanity. Jesus is. #persecution #faith Click To Tweet

Knowing that, they brought each exquisite broken heart to the Messiah, one by one.

The prison known for torture and swift execution of the rejected became a church for the chosen. #persecution #gratitude Click To Tweet

Through Maryam and Marziyah’s eyes, imprisonment became freedom. A place where people were thrown away like permanently stained garments became a place where they were gathered, treasured, and made clean by the blood of Jesus.

I have never spent time in prison for my faith. But I do know what it means to be thrown away, rejected. I know what it means for a follower of Jesus to bring me to Him. The rest is His story. He has made me clean, and He has chosen me, not rejected me. Rejection became a pathway to gratitude for my Savior.

Thank you, Lord, for taking us from the ends of the earth, calling to us in our prisons. Thank You for choosing us, not rejecting us.

Lord, turn our prisons into places of worship. May we be quick to take our burdens and the burdens of others to You. May rejection become a pathway to gratitude. Amen.