Lauren is an American revert to Islam who chose "ease" as her word of the year, then experienced the hardest year of her life, losing her brother and best friend, before stumbling across the Quranic verse "with hardship comes ease" and realizing it was already in the book she hadn't read yet. In this episode, she shares how watching Palestinians say alhamdulillah in the middle of atrocities led her to order a Quran as a self-help book, how her friend kept telling her "I think you're secretly Muslim," and how she took her shahada on the first night of Ramadan 2024. We also get into online criticism about the hijab, the "baby panda at the zoo" effect reverts experience, and what born Muslims don't understand about how isolating the revert journey really is.-Subscribe to the Revert Of The Week Newsletter: https://canyon-mimbs.kit.com/revert-0:00 – Teaser: Asking the universe for ease, Gaza footage & finding it in the Quran1:56 – Lauren's full revert story 5:52 – Brother died, best friend died of cancer and the hardest year of her life begins9:48 – October 7th & Palestine protests 13:44 – Ordering the Quran as a self-help book 17:40 – Moms for Gaza group chat 21:36 – Taking shahada on the first night of Ramadan 2024 25:32 – Tested immediately after converting 29:28 – Jumping into her first Ramadan full-speed 33:24 – Revert burnout, crashing and rebuilding faith cycles37:20 – Online criticism about not wearing hijab 41:16 – The fine line between accountability and policing in the community45:12 – What born Muslims don't understand about reverts 49:08 – How the ummah treats reverts like trophies then forgets them -Lauren: / laurenhsweeney Clips Channel: / @canyonmimbsshowclips Canyon: / canyonmimbs Contact Us: canyon@canyonmimbs.com#Revert #RevertStory #Muslim