My Name Is Mahtob: The Story That Began the Global Phenomenon Not Without My Daughter Continues

by Mahtob Mahmoody

  “Lord, I stretch my hands to you,” we sang in harmony, and then it struck me that this would be the last time all seventy of us would raise our voices together in worship. Hannah, now standing beside me, must have been sharing the thought. We stood hand in hand before the crowded auditorium, weeping, unable to sing another note. Amoo Kombiz, my dad’s former best friend who had become my adopted Persian uncle, sat with Mom a few rows back, videotaping the tearful spectacle.

  Hannah’s and Mollie’s dad, Pastor Stern, gave the sermon that day. Building on the theme of our class song, he spoke of the role his hand had played in the rearing of his twin daughters. Holding it out for all to see, he described how his hand had caught them when they stumbled, corrected them, and encouraged them.

  “Graduates” Pastor Stern continued, “behind each of you there has been such a loving and giving hand. A hand that belongs to your parents, your grandparents; a hand that belongs to your teachers, your pastors. . . . Those hands, individually and collectively, have played an important part in making this day possible.”

  “However,” he cautioned, “there’s one thing you need to realize about all these hands. They’re all like mine. . . . More often than I care to admit, these hands have failed. They have broken their promises. . . . They haven’t always been there when others needed them. And they won’t always be there. So as you journey through life, don’t reach out to these hands. Rather, reach out to the Hand that’s always been there for you, the Hand behind all the other hands in your life. The Hand that will always be there for you. The Hand that will never fail you. The Hand that loves you more than all the hands gathered here today, and the Hand that will guide you safely through all the tomorrows of your life.”

  His words rang true to me. Many of those whose hands had guided me to this day were scattered about the gymnasium. Each had in some way shared in my upbringing. All had taken it upon themselves to enrich my life with their encouragement and love.

  Pastor Stern pointed to our class verse on the banner that hung behind him: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

  “In other words, graduates, as human beings we can plan, plan, and plan, but the Lord ultimately has the final say-so on whether or not our plans ever take shape.”

  Sitting with my classmates, about to receive my diploma, I felt very uncertain about the course I had chosen. Many of my closest friends—in fact, half of our graduating class, had chosen to go Martin Luther College in Minnesota to pursue careers in the preaching or teaching ministry. I, along with just one other graduate, was headed to Michigan State University in East Lansing. My heart broke at the thought of going from living with my MLS family to being separated from them by the span of several states.

  Mrs. Hatzung had introduced me to the idea of being a missionary. When we studied the Great Commission in the book of Matthew, she’d told us this was God’s command for every Christian, including us. As a child I had been ready to “go and make disciples of all nations,” and I wanted to start with Iran. I wanted my fellow Iranians to know that Jesus had died to save them, too, and that they would go to heaven simply by believing in him. There was no need to pray five times a day facing Mecca or to beat oneself or to make pilgrimages or to die as a martyr in a holy war.

  By the end of first grade, however, I had decided that instead of being a missionary, I would rather be a teacher like Mrs. Hatzung. It wasn’t until the end of my junior year in high school that I contemplated a different field of study. I had picked up a psychological thriller called Primal Fear, and by the time I read the last words, I knew I would study psychology.

  If only I hadn’t read that book, I thought, watching my classmates walk across the stage to accept their diplomas. Then I could go to MLC with my friends, become a teacher, and live happily ever after. Even then I knew I would not have been content with that path. In the years since our escape, I had remained consistently driven to discover the secrets of resilience. That quest was what had ultimately drawn me to Michigan State University.

  I had a gnawing need to know everything I could about the workings of the human mind. Why did people do the things they did and how was it that certain life experiences affected individuals so differently? I wondered. What distinguished the person who crumbled in the face of adversity from the one who thrived? And—more to the point—how could I ensure that I never became the one who crumbled? For years, I had been burdened with a deep sense of foreboding that I was just one hurdle away from becoming bitter and cynical, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.

  I managed to dry my tears long enough to accept my diploma. When the ceremony ended, we filed out two by two, just as we had entered, only this time the familiar corridors that led out the front door no longer belonged to us.

  My classmates and I stood shoulder to shoulder on the front lawn of the school, our graduation gowns flowing in the breeze, as our professors led the long procession of well-wishers. These farewells were not easy for them either. It was unusually warm and sunny for early May. The sky was blue, and the grass was thick and green beneath our feet.

  The school president paused when he reached me. “Mahtob,” he said, shaking my hand, “I owe you and your mom an apology.”

  “For what?” I asked, waiting for the punch line. President Prange was known for his sense of humor.

  “Four years ago, on orientation day, I manned one of the registration tables. I was aware of your background, and I knew you were one of the incoming freshmen. As parents made their way to my station, I handed them a stack of consent forms and joked, ‘Sign here and I’ll make your child disappear.’ It wasn’t until I saw your mom’s signature that I realized who you were. I felt horrible. I hadn’t thought about what such a statement would mean to you. What an insensitive thing to say! I’m sorry. I just needed to get that off my chest.”

  By the time he finished explaining I could barely breathe. Under different circumstances, it probably wouldn’t have struck me so funny, but the physical and emotional exhaustion of the occasion had taken its toll, and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a much-needed reprieve from my sadness.

  Late in the evening, emotionally and physically exhausted, I faced one more excruciating round of good-byes and collapsed behind the wheel of my car, thankful not to be making the hour-long drive on my own. Hannah had decided to go back with me to Mom’s house for the night. We were a pathetic pair, sobbing uncontrollably most of the way.

  It was on a dark country road, through her tears, that Hannah first taught me a poem that has stuck with me ever since. She called it “The Weaver’s Poem,” and I have since learned that the words she taught me were slightly different from what the author B.M. Franklin originally wrote. But the powerful meaning was the same:

  My life is but a weaving

  Between my Lord and me.

  I cannot choose the colors

  He weaves so skillfully.

  Sometimes He weaveth sorrow

  And I in foolish pride

  Forget He sees the upper

  And I the underside.

  Not ’til the loom is silent

  And the shuttles cease to fly

  Will God unroll the canvas

  And explain the reasons why

  The dark threads are as needful,

  In The Weaver’s skillful hands

  As the threads of gold and silver

  In the pattern He has planned.

  Those beautiful lines of poetry helped put everything into perspective for me. All the messages of the day melded together for us in that car ride—our class verse, the class hymn, and Pastor Stern’s assurance that our every step is in the loving hands of our Lord and Savior.

  The tears and good-byes, the intolerable grief of losing my home at MLS and, most important, my Seminary family—all that was just one very dark thread in the tapestry God was weaving of my life. God had a plan that I couldn’t completely see from where I was standing.

  I pi
ctured the magnificent Persian carpets that had surrounded me my entire life. Without the dark threads, what would they be? It is the contrast of light and dark and everything in between that gives them their character, their vibrancy—their life.

  Many dark threads had been woven through my life already, and with the perspective of time, I had come to cherish the blessings left in their wake. Hannah had given me a poignant reminder that in the grand scheme of things, life’s hardships really do bring about God’s greatest blessings. If ever there was a life that was a shining example of that truth, it was mine.

  My grief, though real and intense, was shortsighted. This was simply one of the many threads in God’s weaving. No doubt this thread, like all the others before it, would weave together in time to create something uniquely beautiful.

  CHAPTER 22

  The fall of 1998 brought with it another move. The only person I knew at Michigan State University was my roommate, Trisha. Trish and I hadn’t been close friends in high school, but I’d been greatly relieved when I learned we had both been accepted to Lyman Briggs College, one of MSU’s smaller and more competitive programs. This interdisciplinary “residential college” basically took one of the largest universities in the nation and broke it down into a more manageable bite-sized piece. Only a few hundred students were selected each year to begin the program. We lived, ate, and even had most of our classes all in one building.

  Lyman Briggs students were a studious bunch—serious scholars of the natural sciences with an appreciation for liberal arts and the social implications of scientific advances. To say that Trish and I lived on the rowdiest of floors in Holmes Hall, while true, is a bit laughable. Our floor’s collective rowdiness was exceedingly tame by MSU standards. It was a coed floor, which is how I came to know Brian. His room was just across the hall on the diagonal from ours, and the instant he spotted Mom and me lugging in my copious amount of belongings, he jumped right in to help. I didn’t know it yet, but he would become a faithful friend and loyal protector.

  Although I had chosen to focus on the natural sciences like biology, physics, and chemistry, my passion was the social sciences—psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. My first psychology class only confirmed this inclination. We read books like Breggin and Cohen’s Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, and Modrow’s How to Become a Schizophrenic, a tome that pinned the blame on inconsistent parenting. My professor claimed to have successfully treated people with incapacitating schizophrenia without the use of psychotropic medications.

  I was hooked. I knew that my heart belonged to the social sciences. I didn’t care about neurochemicals or the functions of different parts of the brain. I was driven by a hunger to understand human thought and behavior. How did our thoughts influence our behavior and vice versa? How did our life experiences affect our thoughts—or was it the other way around? Did our thoughts prompt our life experiences? How did culture, environment, family structures, and religion fit into the equation?

  It struck me in that first psychology class that somewhere near the root of many mental-health conditions are the emotions of guilt and fear. In the far recesses of my mind was born a theory that a feeling of guilt was the driving force behind mental illness. I’m not arguing this as scientific fact. It’s just the observations of a young person dipping her toe into the study of the human mind while guided by a professor whose philosophy, while fascinating, was extremely controversial among his peers.

  Undergraduate courses in psychology teach almost nothing about treatment, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming up my own treatment approaches. To me it seemed common sense that if guilt were the root of the problem, then forgiveness was the solution. And where was forgiveness found? In the Bible.

  The Bible’s teachings can be divided into two categories—law and gospel. The law shows us our sin and our need for a savior. Throughout time and across the various regions of the earth, a similar moral code has ruled. Murder is considered to be wrong, as are stealing and adultery. It’s not just Christians who ascribe to these values; they’re societal norms. God has written his law on our hearts. Whether or not we ever open a Bible, we know God’s law. Our conscience is proof of that. What we don’t inherently know is the gospel, the good news that tells us Jesus is our savior.

  The root of the problem, as I saw it, was that we often fail to forgive ourselves and instead hold on to our guilt and the fear of punishment that it breeds. My theory was that a treatment approach built on these law and gospel messages, with an emphasis on the “good news,” could go a long way toward improving a person’s mental health.

  Like many people who enter the field of psychology, I was on a mission to form a better understanding of myself. The concept of forgiveness as a solution to guilt was a lesson learned since first grade. Could it be that this was at the heart of my resilience?

  I didn’t dare speak of these things with my professors. For one, I was too shy to approach them. In addition, I found MSU, especially where the sciences were concerned, to be extremely secular—at times even crossing into anti-Christian.

  On two different occasions I was called on to give a public confession of my faith in class. Both were difficult experiences. The first came in a biology class, which featured what I thought to be an overemphasis on evolution.

  The instructor intrigued me. I had imagined a high-ranking professor to look polished and professional, wearing a suit and heels. Instead she had long, stringy, gray hair and wore hippie clothes and Birkenstocks when she lectured. I admired her nonconformity. She proved it was possible to excel academically and professionally while still maintaining one’s individuality. She encouraged her students to think and speak freely, believing that active engagement in the subject matter was a valuable part of the learning process. If a student answered a question incorrectly, the instructor was prone to say something like, “Hmm, interesting thought. I can see where you might get that impression. Does anyone else see it differently?”

  Even in this atmosphere of openness, I still hid bashfully toward the back of the lecture hall. Then one day she asked the question, “How did the universe come to be?” She scanned the students, who sat at tables in an arc around her, each curved row slightly higher than the previous.

  I tried my usual evasive tactic. I stared at my notebook and pretended the notes I was scribbling were of vital importance. But I could feel her looking at me. “Go ahead,” she said.

  I glanced at the students seated beside me, hoping one of them would answer. When they didn’t, I pointed at myself and gave the professor a sheepish look that said, “Who, me?”

  “Yes, you,” she answered. “Please tell us how the universe came to be.”

  My mind raced. I knew the answer she wanted me to give. I also knew that I didn’t believe it. I quickly weighed my options and ultimately decided that this wasn’t an Iranian classroom where I was required to give the teacher the answer she demanded. This was America. Here I was free to think and to say what I believed.

  Clearing my throat, I very quietly quoted Genesis 1:1, the very first words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

  Though I knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, I still presumed she would react with her usual tact. Instead she berated me. I was humiliated. After class, students I had never met approached me to apologize on her behalf. They didn’t all agree with what I said, but they felt bad that I had been so cruelly rebuked. Some did agree, and one even went so far as to thank me for speaking up. “I wish I had your courage,” she said, patting me on the shoulder.

  The second such experience came in a different class not long after the murder conviction of Jack Kevorkian, the doctor who championed the cause of physician-assisted suicide. This lecture hall was narrow and deep. I had learned that the best place to hide was in the middle of the front row, directly in front of the professor. She naturally looked well above me, into the center of the mass of students.
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br />   “As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, Jack Kevorkian, ‘Dr. Death,’ was convicted of murder. I want to hear from you. Should he have been convicted? Was what he did really murder, or was it mercy?”

  I sat calmly, waiting for the professor to call on someone in the middle of the room. Instead, she stopped in front of me and asked, “What do you think?”

  “I think the jury was right to convict him.”

  “Okay. Why?” she prodded.

  “I believe God gives life, and he’s the only one who is justified in taking it.”

  The class exploded at the mention of God. Suddenly everyone, it seemed, had something to say. Tempers flared. Most of the comments did not center on whether euthanasia was right or wrong. Instead they focused on speaking out against me and my statement. Some asserted there is no God. Others held that it’s not God who gives and takes life. Still others insisted there is no room in modern society for what they perceived to be antiquated, ignorant, and prejudicial religiously based ideologies.

  I was shocked and infuriated. Who was being prejudiced? Not me, but the ones who were lambasting me for my beliefs. I had been asked for my opinion and I had given it. Why was all this anger being directed at me? Why the shouting? Why the hostility? Why was I coming under personal attack? I wasn’t telling them they had to think the way I did. I wasn’t yelling and pointing my finger because we had different opinions.

  Again I sat there thinking, This is America. What is happening? As an American, am I not guaranteed the right to freedom of religion? Am I not guaranteed the right to freedom of speech? That’s what makes this country so great. We are free to disagree.

  When I was younger, Mom had taped a newspaper clipping to the edge of her computer monitor. The words were attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire: “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It became frighteningly clear to me that day that where religion was concerned on my campus, that philosophy did not apply. In the name of political correctness, religion and specifically Christianity had become taboo.