Naghmeh Abedini says despite Saeed Abedini’s spousal abuse, she cannot deny his passion for Jesus, and that makes her love him now more than ever.
“I can not deny the amazing dad he has been to our kids and the spiritual truths he poured into their life until the moment he was arrested,” she posted on Facebook. “But at the same time I can not deny the very dark parts of our marriage and serious issues Saeed continues to struggle with.”
The social media post comes a few weeks after she told prayer partners the pastor imprisoned in Iran had abused her throughout the marriage.
Until that point, Naghmeh was a tireless advocate for Saeed, who has been imprisoned for his faith in Iran for the last four years.
“A month ago, the Lord asked me to stop and sit,” Naghmeh Abedini writes. “It took another step of faith to stop everything and just sit at the feet of Jesus and to hear from Him. It was freeing to see that by Grace of God none of the fame and attention or praises of men had gotten to me and that I could drop everything the moment my Savior told me to drop it and to go back to being a single mom in Boise, Idaho. It was freeing to let go of the FALSE SENSE of SECURITY that money was bringing into my life (through speaking engagements) and to know that the only thing that all I desperately needed was Jesus. That my true security rests in Jesus. That Jesus is my day to day provider.”
Naghmeh faced immense scrutiny when she came forward with the abuse claims. Some used social media to question if Naghmeh’s statements were true.
“I had to turn off every voice including my own and only care about what Jesus was saying to me,” Naghmeh writes. “It was hard. With the news that came out recently (an email I had sent to prayer partners was leaked to media), stones were being thrown at me left and right and many religious leaders who saw me wounded and bleeding passed on by afraid to touch me or this whole mess/situation. It was hard, but Jesus kept telling me to be silent and to look to Him.”
Naghmeh’s abuse allegations follow a trend in the church: That many Christian women fail to acknowledge they are in an abusive relationship.
Despite the online attacks against her character, Naghmeh is coming forward again and asking for prayer for both her and her husband.
“So I open myself up once again and become real and raw in asking you to join me in praying for Saeed. This time not only for his physical chains, but the spiritual chains that have bound him for so many years. Those chains that have stuck to him from the culture he was raised in (Middle East) and from his former religion (Islam). I believe that God will use Saeed’s imprisonment to break Saeed of these chains and to refine him and use him as a vessel for the work that He has prepared for him,” she writes.
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