Is God Missing From My Marriage?
by Ayana Iman
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July 21, 2022

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Is God Missing From My Marriage?

Courtesy of Ayana Iman

When I first met my husband, then boyfriend, we realized a few things: 1. We went to the same high school but on different campuses. (He was two grades ahead of me, so there’s that.) 2. Our mother’s worked together for some time and got hired on the same day. 3. We were Black but culturally different. He is a first-generation Nigerian, raised in a two-parent home. I was African-American, raised by a single mom with a British-Jamaican father. 4. Our final realization was we had different religions. He is Muslim; I am Christian. 

Our love blossomed; we moved in together, and we became family. He even became a de facto father to my daughter, giving her the love and security she deserved. Our relationship was everything I wanted and needed. I never thought for a second that there was anything we couldn’t weather together. That was until we got engaged to marry.

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Number 4 on our list of realizations — different religions — was never a thing we discussed as a dealbreaker. Neither one of us attended service or participated in our faith community. When we attended church or stepped into a mosque, it was to appease family or for an event. We aren’t anti-religion or atheists. If anything, I think we were healing from certain religious indoctrinations and were figuring out a relationship with God on our own. Or, perhaps, we were too unfocused to make it a priority. But, here we were planning a wedding and couldn’t agree on who would officiate. Naturally, I wanted a pastor to lead us on our big day. He preferred an Imam, a person who leads prayers in a mosque, or someone non-denominational. We went with the latter. Easy fix, right? Nope. We still had the hurdles of family requests to get through. 

One day his father asked us, “what do you believe in?” We both established being good people is what we believe in. As they say in Nigeria, “no wahala” (no trouble) for us. My father-in-law’s question felt so foreign to me. I grew up Baptist, attended bible study on Wednesdays with my grandparents, Sunday school and first service, and revival during the summer. I would also tithe, maybe not 10%, but an offer made. As a youth, my husband followed Islam, participated in Ramadan, and heavily considered making ​​Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which every adult Muslim must make at least once in their lifetime. Yet, he asked if we believed in God because we didn’t outwardly talk about religion. 

Courtesy of Ayana Iman

Our impending marriage made me think about our future in an entirely different way. What happens when we have children? And how will they be raised? What happens if one of us gets further into religion? Does the other blindly follow along? Our daughter Ayo was christened at the request of my aunt. I didn’t question her and did it as a sign of respect. I can’t tell if that’s worse than doing it because I believed it was the right thing to do. Then there was our Nikah, an Islamic marriage ceremony, in which we had to honor his family. I was indifferent to the ceremony. The pomp and circumstance were to celebrate their traditions and felt necessary to join our families. It was a beautiful celebration of love. On the flip side, I’m not 100% sure what happened that night. But my appreciation for the culture has grown. 

Over the past few months, I’ve realized that God is not missing from our marriage. Religion is. We haven’t figured out if religion makes sense for us, and that’s okay. If anything, I hope we can make space for more spiritual practices that make us feel connected to God through prayer and acts of service. 

Whenever I need to be reminded of God’s grace, I remember the golden rule: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Matthew 7:12. In other words, treat people the way you want to be treated. 

For now, this is enough for me. 

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