To the Children of Abraham
Children of Abraham, hear me.
To my Jewish family, to my Christian family, to my Muslim family, to every soul who traces their story back to Abraham’s tent, I come with no title, no authority, no robes, no rank, only a heart cracked open enough to see what we keep forgetting. I am not a scholar, not a rabbi, not an imam, or pastor, no... not today...
I am Joshua, a simple man that believes in the Most High... a man who walked through fire and lived long enough to tell you what I saw in the flames. Judaism taught me the Holy One is indivisible. Christianity taught me love is stronger than death. Islam taught me surrender is freedom. And all three taught me that every human being carries the image of God. So why do we act like God is tribal, like the Most High belongs to one group more than another. I have prayed in churches, wept in mosques, stood in awe before the Torah’s fire. I have seen beauty in all three faiths and I have seen cruelty in all three faiths. And if one flawed man like me can hold all three with reverence, why can’t we.
My name is Joshua. I go by JoshM online... I am autistic. I live with ADHD, anxiety, and schizophrenia, a mind that is loud, a heart that is tender, a soul that has been bruised broken and tested more times than I can count. I grew up with pain no child should ever carry. Fear came before safety. Betrayal came before trust. And the very name that should have meant mercy was sometimes used as a weapon.
I do not say that to accuse, I say it because it is true. There came a time when the weight of everything I survived felt too heavy to keep carrying, a time when I believed I was beyond love, beyond hope, beyond redemption. I lost faith, not just in religion, not just in people, but in the Divine Himself. I walked into darkness and I stayed there.
But hear me, My Jewish family, My Christian family, and My Muslim family, hear this with your heart. Even when I lost faith in God, God did not lose faith in me. In the lowest moment of my life, hidden in the dark, convinced I had reached the end...
But then I heard my name. Not in anger, not in judgment, not in thunder, just my name. And then my only friend, the woman who would become my wife, found me. She did not know where I was or what I planned. She only knew she felt something pull her toward me, a need, not a thought, a knowing, not a guess. She stepped into my pain, she met me in my darkness.She reached for me, and cried with me, she held me when I could not hold myself. And in that moment, for the first time in my life, I felt seen, I felt heard, I felt human again.
She introduced me to Yeshua/Jesus Christ, not the version used to frighten me, shame me, or control me, but the Teacher, the Shepherd, the one who lifts the fallen and binds the broken, the one whose words are medicine, not weapons. I did not find Him. I was not looking. I had sadly given up.
But He found me.
And I learned something that changed everything. The Most High does not abandon His children, even when His children abandon hope.
So hear me, Children of Abraham. If the God of Abraham can reach into the life of a man like me, a man who had lost faith, lost hope, lost himself, then surely He can reach across the divisions between His children. Surely He can heal what we have broken. Surely He can soften what we have hardened. Surely He can unite what we have torn apart. I am not a scholar, but a Carpenter, I am not a leader, but a servent, I am not a saint...
I am simply living proof that mercy is real, that compassion is stronger than doctrine, and that the God of Abraham has not given up on any of us.
Let us stop trying to win. Let us start trying to heal. Let us honor the Most High not with louder arguments but with deeper compassion. Let us remember we are family. We always were. We always will be.
Peace be upon all of you,
💚JoshM