My name is Leslie, I’m 57 years old. I’m from Washington DC in the east coast of the US. I grew up in a family that was protestant, however we weren’t practicing religion whatsoever except for the random “Let’s go to church, any church on Easter Sunday”.

I accepted Islam in May, about 2 months ago. What interested me about Islam was how beautiful the personalities were of people I knew… and it wasn’t religious, it was more personalities and how you feel when you’ve around people with my friends who are Muslims.

The main thing that Islam has brought in my life is serenity. I feel it all the time. It’s a sort of deflating of a balloon that’s about to burst.

“It’s ok… you are safe, you are secure and you can get through all of this without all of the drama that you used to have… that got you nowhere”.

I had as many concerns accepting Islam as I did when I decided to sell my house I’d owned for 20 years and move half way around the world. “What if this… what if that…” Always my life was “what are they going to think of me?” and that could be anything from moving to leaving my son at university in America.

And me being a single mother and coming here alone, the same kind of “what will they think of me?” was the same thing I thought when I converted. However, if you had to put them on a grade them in terms of intensity… my concerns were incredibly weak, any time I felt a concern coming on. It kinda just dissipated like “Oh, who cares?”

I was sitting in bed with my feet up on the wall and I was like “God I feel like the bride” it’s an amazing feeling more than the two marriages actually.

Q: What would you say to someone who believes in Islam but is yet to embrace it?

You know what, probably all of us will go through the “Oh what will people think of me?” “How will my relationship change with my coworkers, my friends, my family? Will they feel uncomfortable around me? Will I feel self conscious?”

You’re going to ask yourself all of these questions, but at the end of the day, who cares?

Do you really think the people that you hang out with would treat you differently?

And if they would, maybe you should think about who you hang out with.