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Editor’s note: Crystal Baird, seen above in pictures as a child and on the opposite page with her husband, Patrick, is a member of Grace Life Baptist Church in Cypress. She recently shared part of her testimony with the Texan.
We hid our Bibles in our suitcases, beneath a mountain of clothes, toiletries, and toys, and prayed the customs official couldn’t read English. In public, my mother wore a long, loose-fitting, black abaya. At home on the compound, she relaxed in shorts. For her, Saudi Arabia was a dark and unforgiving land worlds away from her native Texas. To me, as a six-year-old, it had become home, and it was where I met Jesus.
We moved across the ocean in 1983 after my father accepted a transfer to support an oil refinery in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. Faith was not part of the relocation package. There was no church, no Sunday school, no Bible study. While we were not forced to attend Salat—ritual prayer—at a mosque, we were expected to pause five times per day when the prayer call went out over the loudspeaker.
At the international school, my friends hailed from Singapore, Germany, and South Africa. We roamed the compound, settling easily into expat life, letting our parents carry the worries of the world. Our days consisted of swimming year-round in the neighborhood pool, visiting the commissary for Milky Way bars and Juicy Fruit gum, and watching “The NeverEnding Story” on Betamax.
My feisty mother was not going to let this dry desert rob her of her spiritual growth. If she couldn’t have her Bible, she could carry the verses. If we couldn’t have Sunday school, she’d teach us herself. Every once in a while, she would bring out a small plastic box of Bible verses printed on three-by-one-inch cards. She worked with us to memorize the core verse of our faith: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
"I prayed earnestly with my mother that night, picturing Jesus, a mighty warrior, coming into my heart and sweeping away the ghosts, monsters, and anything else I feared."
One night, fear of the dark things became overwhelming. Mom pulled my sister and me close on her bed and explained that with Jesus, we would never have to be afraid. If we invited Him into our hearts, He would give us peace and help us rest.
I prayed earnestly with my mother that night, picturing Jesus, a mighty warrior, coming into my heart and sweeping away the ghosts, monsters, and anything else I feared. That was when Jesus became part of my daily life. There hasn’t been a breath I’ve taken since that hasn’t had Jesus in it.
We returned to the states in 1987 and melded back into American culture in Southeast Texas. Innocence faded as I grew: my parents divorced, the Gulf War erupted, and the Twin Towers crumbled to the ground in the name of Allah. As I set off for college, childlike fears of monsters under my bed were traded for fears of failure, of not being good enough, and of losing everything and everyone who mattered to me.
Let me be clear: Jesus never left me, but I—a wandering sheep—was distracted by my fears. Sometimes I succumbed to them, letting them take over. Sometimes I gritted my teeth and fought back. Either way, that childlike faith grew bitter at times, and I struggled to lean on God’s strength. For fear of not being liked, I stayed in an emotionally abusive relationship for more than a decade. For fear of never getting published, I stopped writing. For fear of being alone, I became promiscuous. Just when God rescued me from one sinkhole, I would fall into another.
By 2022, I was a single mother of two children under age two. Anxiety had overtaken me: I was alone, humiliated, and broken.
I remembered Ephesians 2:4-5: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ.”
I knocked on the door of the nearest church I could find: Grace Life Baptist Church in Cypress. Reflecting the mercy of God, they scooped me up without judgment and wrapped their arms around my small family. They fed us, they prayed for us, and they offered us a safe place to heal and grow.
In 2024, God blessed us with a godly and loving husband and father who accepted my two little ones as his own. By God’s grace, we continue to heal as a blended family, and my anxiety no longer keeps me captive. My shepherd left the 99 to find me—alone, broken, and full of fear—but still willing.
God meets us when we are most vulnerable, whether we are children growing up in a Muslim country or adults who’ve forgotten to surrender. Admitting my weakness and giving my grown-up fears to God was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But I choose to do it each day again and again.
