My name is Miracle Fofana, I was born in Liberia to a Muslim father and a Christian mother. My parents sent me to a phonic school called Sotamo where I learned to read and write with a special interest in cursive writing. I also learned to speak and write Standard English and shunned speaking informal English. For example, if someone spoke to me in Liberian English and asked me “where’s your name?” I would say, “my name is in my father’s room, or my name is in America”. You had to speak standard English to me by asking “What is your name?” and then I would call my name.
In my eyes, the look of cursive letters was so beautiful that it made me write them everywhere, every day. My father would smack me many times for scribbling on the walls and the floor. I became more expressive and passionate when I started learning how to use those letters to form words to express my emotions. I found myself writing in the third grade. My school bag always had pieces of paper with words on them. If there was no paper to write on, my pants and body would be my paper for that moment.
My mother later took me to Ghana with the expectation of coming to the United States, but things did not work out. However, I spent one year in Ghana and then moved back to Liberia. When I moved back to Liberia, my parents made me repeat the third grade. Even though I had a passion for writing, I was not an A student in school. I failed the third and fourth-grade classes. I felt like I wasn’t smart enough to be in school. All my friends that started with me were two classes ahead.
I was the only child of my parents at my birth. My dad named me after his mother, ‘Asatta’, and my mother called me Satta. Dad did everything he could to get me into the most prestigious schools. I grew up with my parents in the same house but in two different sections, as they had earlier become estranged from each other. I was in one section of the house with my dad, while my mother was in another section with her new husband and my two brothers. My daddy loved me so much that he did all he could to bring the best out of me. He hired a babysitter for my care. When he left home, he left me with my Christian mother and neighbors. They would take me to church. Through regular churchgoing, I was able to learn the Bible and some Christian songs. Even though dad used to take me to his family, he had a fear of me associating with them too much. This is because they weren’t enthusiastic about me going to school. He began to educate me in the Islamic faith, and I became confused, I couldn’t understand what he was teaching. However, during prayer time, I would pray with him. Anything he did, I would do. If he knelt, I would also kneel. I did that for years.
Here is the miraculous part of my life story that I hope will strengthen you with some inspiration. Years later, my father married my Nanny. We participated in the US Diversity Visa Lottery Program (DV) to come to the United States. On my14th birthday, the year I was heading to America, something unbelievable happened to me. That day, I suddenly lost consciousness and had a seizure. The foam was coming from my mouth, and they took me to the hospital. The doctor said that it was malaria. From that day, the challenges of my life began. After we came to the United States, I started losing consciousness, and nobody knew what was wrong with me. They ran tests on my brain to find the cause of the seizures, but they did not find anything. After the doctors could not specifically diagnose my condition, they prescribed seizure medication for me.
In 2009, something miraculous happened to me that changed my life. As I was taking a shower on that beautiful sunny day, I heard a voice in the bathroom saying; “The water you are bathing in is the blood of Jesus. Repent and follow me!” My eyes were closed with soap on my face when I heard the voice. Who are you? I asked. “I am your Lord and Savior.” When I opened my eyes, the water turned into blood and the voice said, “Do not be afraid, for you are a miracle child, and you are being baptized with the blood of Jesus. Follow me and I will save your soul!” I screamed! I closed my eyes to wash the soap off my face. When I opened my eyes for the second time, the water was normal. My body was shivering with fear as the voice said, “You won’t see the bloody water again, I only turned it to blood so you could see my glory.” But how can I follow you when my father is a Muslim? My father will get angry with me when he finds out that I have turned to Christianity”. I replied. “Don’t worry, I will be with you.” said the Lord.
It irritated my father when I became a Christian. He asked why I chose to be a follower of Jesus. I explained my encounter with the Holy Spirit, but he pleaded that I should not embarrass him. His family encouraged him to abandon me and even told him that I was not his child because I chose to follow Jesus, but he didn’t. Dad enrolled me in an Islamic institution. Moreover, I had nobody at home to speak with about Jesus. My stepmother, who is a Christian, would sometimes report me when she sees me doing anything related to Christianity. As a result, I created a social media page, connected to numerous followers of Jesus Christ. I met a young gentleman on Facebook and explained my testimony to him. His mother is a Christian lady, and he introduced me to her. She taught me the Bible and taught me how to pray. That was the first Christian family God directed me to after I got converted.
Whenever my father heard me and the lady praying on the phone, he got annoyed. To avoid him getting upset, I would go into the closet in my room and put two to three thick winter blankets over me so he wouldn’t hear my conversation. I’ll be sweating; my heels will hurt me. I had no choice. My dad’s happiness was disturbed by my conversion. Anyway, as time marched on, it became apparent that he could not convince me to become a Muslim.
One day I lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital. When I came through, the doctor asked me what had happened. I stated that the Lord gave me a revelation for His people, He took me to heaven to show me heaven and hell. The doctors told my father, I had a psychiatric problem. According to them, if I can see and hear voices, it meant that those voices might tell me to kill somebody. I was in the psychiatric ward for three weeks, taking psychiatric and seizure medications at the same time. I was taking ten different medicines a day.
The Lord appeared to me many times in my dream, saying that I am a miracle child; and that I should be called Miracle. It was also confirmed on the Prayer Line I was on when a prophetic word came to me, saying that the Lord wanted me to be called Miracle. I had been fasting and praying about the name at the time. Out of fear and respect for my father, I decided to not change my name. Then I had a car accident in 2019. During that accident, the wind was heavy, it was raining. My car slid and went on a bridge, under was a highway, and the Lord said to me, “Are you ready to be called Miracle?” I changed my name from Asatta to Miracle in early 2022 when I got my citizenship.
I have been embarrassed in places with seizures. In fact, I won’t call it a seizure because doctors cannot find anything in my brain that caused the seizures.
One day, as my father was cooking, I had a fit. I took the hot pot, which was ninety degrees hot, and started walking confusedly. I held the pot in my hands for about three minutes, and my dad was afraid to get closer; he feared that I will burn myself. When I came through, I placed the pot back on the stove. My dad dashed over to me to check for a burning mark on my hands, but there was none. Sometimes when I convulsed; my stepmother would watch as I hit my head against hard surfaces and she won’t do anything because of her superstitious belief that my condition is contagious and that saliva from my mouth would make her contract the condition too. Because of this, there was domestic discrimination against me with utensils such as spoons, cups, and plate used by me kept in a separate place in my father’s house.
Due to the ill-treatment meted out to me by my stepmother, I left home and moved to Philadelphia. On the day I was leaving my father’s house, my stepmother said to me that wherever I was going, six months will not pass before I get pregnant, drop out of school and be a useless child. It was painful and hard for my father; he cried and pleaded that I should not leave, but I just had to do what I had to do. I left dad’s house with determination. As a young lady leaving my parents house, I was ready to face any challenge that life brought my way.
I was still taking seizure medications, and those medications were affecting my memory. When I studied for a test, I won’t remember anything. I graduated with a low GPA. I stopped taking the medications and trusted God Almighty for my healing. Now, it is going away!
After two years of living with my friend that encouraged me to move to Pennsylvania, she betrayed me and left me alone. I almost became homeless. It was my cousin who hosted me for two months until I got my apartment that saved me from homelessness. When I got my own place, many told me to drop out of school, work to pay bills, and go back to school later. Some even told me that I could not make it alone. I disagreed with everyone; I was going to school full time and working full time. I have never dropped out of school, even if it’s one class, I will take it. I refused to live with a man or even have a roommate because I felt like they will leave me hanging like the way my friend did.
With all the challenges that I’ve been through, the emphasis has always been on my strong faith in Jesus. If it wasn’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t have gotten this far in life! He is my strength and the reason why I can never give up in life. I am an emerging inspirational writer and an emerging inspirational speaker. Never Give Up have been the three words that God used to keep me strong. I can never give up.
I am a student at West Chester University in Pennsylvania studying Interdisciplinary Studies and minoring in Creative Writing. My mission is to inspire many souls through my writing by encouraging them to use positive tools to bring their dreams to light. I’m now writing my first book, “The Alphabet of Life.” This is just a part of my story.
