Everyone has a unique faith journey. I’m not exactly eager to tell you about mine, but in case it helps someone, here goes.
When I was in second grade, I stole dimes from my mom’s dresser, so when my Sunday school teacher said we were all sinners, I knew I was one. She explained that Jesus died to pay for our sins so we could go to heaven someday, and I prayed to accept Jesus as my Savior. I was seven years old.
During my teens, I was active in my church youth group and tried to do everything right. I met my husband in college, we got married and had kids, and eventually, we followed our dream of becoming missionaries. After we raised support, we moved to Paris to study French. Looking back on that time, I see that I was full of pride about my so-called wholesome life. Me doubt Christianity? Never. Not me.
In Paris, I looked down from the top floor of the Centre Pompidou (which houses a library) at hundreds of pedestrians passing below and wondered how many had ever heard of Jesus. Could he really be the only way to know God? Wasn’t it arrogant of me to think my religion was the only true one? I quit reading my Bible and praying, except at meals.
At the end of the second semester, I took a French conversation class. One day the topic was religion. As I listened to the merits of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and New Age philosophy, none of them made sense. Although I wasn’t sure what I believed, I knew what I didn’t believe. To myself, I concluded I was an agnostic.
I felt free. No accounting to God, if there was one. No one to please but me. During lunch hours, I explored Paris bookshops, visited museums, and ate crêpes on street corners, where I practiced my French with vendors.
My joyful sense of freedom soon gave way to dissatisfaction. I was impatient with my kids and husband. Paris didn’t seem so charming anymore. In a city of seven million, I was a Nobody. When I shared my feelings with a veteran missionary, she brushed them aside as symptoms of culture shock.
I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t honest with my husband about what I was going through. How could an agnostic be a missionary? What would our supporters back home say? Returning to the States was not an option. I went to church, kept my mouth shut, and watched the Christians around me do nice things for my family and me. They seemed authentic, while I was a fraud.
Could the world have come into being without God? I used to look up at the sky through bare tree branches on my way home from class, wondering if we could ever know what life was all about and whether it mattered. I had no answers. If there were a God up there, he was certainly too vast and too remote to be concerned about us humans.
On a visit to a cathedral, I touched the cold hard stone of a sarcophagus and thought of the body buried inside who used to be a living, breathing, thinking person like me. Was this all there was to life? I put my questions on hold while we packed up to leave Europe.
We moved to the heart of Africa, settled in a tin-roofed house on the top of a hill in a picturesque village, and got to know our co-workers and their families. Life at Rwanguba was both exhilarating and hard. I lost myself in the tasks of survival, making sure we had food on the table, potable water, clean clothes, and kerosene for power outages.
We heard rumors of fighting in a remote village. My senses snapped to attention as I encountered men on our road carrying machetes. Our gardener lost his three-year-old boy to malaria. I had nightmares about dying that left me in a cold sweat, my heart racing. What would I do when my time came? Was there no hope? How could life be so cruel? The dreams didn’t let up.
One morning after a sleepless night, I cried out for help. “I can’t live like this. If you’re there, God, you’re going to have to change my thinking because I can’t. Please help me. I can’t believe in something unless I’m convinced it’s true.”
Nothing happened. “Even if Christianity weren’t true,” I said to my husband one evening, “it still has good family values.” He didn’t let that go by. “If it weren’t true, why would we want to believe it?” At weekly meetings, missionaries shared prayer requests and answers. I didn’t participate much, but when our kids came down with malaria and ran temps of 105, I prayed with all my heart, and was relieved and grateful when they recovered. Yet God remained a mystery.
One day, my first thought upon waking was that God loved me. Yes, I’d heard that all my life, but on that particular morning, his love surrounded me as never before. I can’t explain it, but I felt valued and safe. Instead of God saying, “I exist,” he had touched my heart. How could I have ever doubted? I was ashamed that I’d latched onto the world’s lies and gone my own way. I confessed everything I’d done, asked God to forgive me, and felt clean again. In time, I confided in my husband about my crisis of faith.
I was hungry for the Bible, and it seemed custom-made for me. A verse in Matthew 28 practically jumped off the page. Verse 17 says, “When they saw him [Jesus], they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Jesus’ followers doubted? That was me for sure. As I read the Bible I found answers to questions that had bugged me. While I don’t know all the answers, I’m convinced God does. His ways are different from mine, more comprehensive, nobler. Scripture resonates me with on so many levels. “This is great stuff!” I often tell my husband.
Since the day that God brought me back to himself, I’ve seen (and continue to see) changes in my attitude that I could never make by myself. For example, I used to insist on having things my own way fulltime, but now it’s only part time. Seriously, I like doing things for others that would’ve been hard in the old days, such as tailoring my cooking to fit the dietary needs of loved ones around the table, e.g. making chocolate-free, dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, meat-free, and/or peanut-free dishes.
God showed me that I used to marginalize people. How arrogant of me! Now I believe that each and every person on earth is significant. Jesus says, “Come.” If people search for God, they’ll find him. What a promise! Because of what God did for me (and is doing on a daily basis), I like to talk about faith with skeptics.
One more thing – I’ve never had another nightmare about death. God gave me peace that’s beyond understanding. The best is yet to come.
To live is Christ and to die is gain.” -Philippians 1:21
Thanks for reading.
Posted on June 21, 2016
Norma Nill 
Thank you for being so transparent about your struggles in faith. I think we all have our own stories of times when we were right there. So thankful our Father hears us right where we are and never lets go. My verse for today is Micah 7:7 “I wait confidently for God to save me, and my God will certainly hear me.”
I appreciate your empathy, Carolyn, and the verse you shared. Thanks!
I too have had several crisis of faith. I still am not a very ‘Good Christian’. I pray, I go to church and I do believe in Jesus, but inside there is that question, “Where was God when I needed his protection so much?”. I have some answers, and I know I would not be the person I am today without those very, very hard times. God has been gracious, and though I have railed against him, he has not given up on me. Always patient, he loves me and accepts me in my broken state.
You and I had some in-depth talks about faith in the choir room, Ellen. Thanks for your encouragement today.
Of course.
Thank you, Norma, for your courage in being transparent. I think most of us who were raised in a home of faith reach a point where we must take that faith, shake it out, examine it and truly make it our own not just our parent’s faith.
I think my own period of struggle when I stripped my faith down to its essence and thought, “God, if you are not who you say you are then nothing in my life makes sense. In fact my whole existence is then worthless.” Silly to think of it in such an egocentric manner but that was what God used for me. From that time I knew God was and would be the bedrock of my life. I’m just thankful God took me through that prior to going through every parent’s worst nightmare, the violent death of a most beloved child. Because he was my rock my feet did not slip. Ps. 121:3 “He will not allow your foot to slip; he who keeps you will not slumber.” Oh yes I certainly let him know I was not pleased with what he had allowed in my life and I was certainly angry with him but angry in the way a child is with a parent when the child does not understand the parent’s answer. Probably much like the petulant child who doesn’t get her own way but faith and trust continued in that crisis I think because it had already been tested.
I don’t know what is in the future but I hope even if I sleep, he will keep watch. God help me to be faithful when the inevitable trials come because I am a pretty frail creature!
What you went through is unfathomable, Laura. I’m sorry for what happened to your child. Thank you for coming today and writing about your reaction, including the pain and anger and ultimate trust in God as the bedrock of your life. I needed to hear that. The verse you shared brings to mind an image someone climbing, looking constantly for footing, growing tired, and struggling to make it, while God is close by, watching every step, whispering encouragement, ready to intervene, never closing his eyes. May God continue to comfort you, and may he use your powerful testimony to bring hope to all who read it.
Thank you for unmasking your true heart. I resonate toward the real, raw scenes of peoples’ life movies. This is real life. Thank you for sharing deeply of your real life struggles.
You make a good point, Cherrie, yet we/I still worry about what people will think of us. Revealing that I was leading a double life – that of an agnostic while I was a missionary – was the hardest part. Thanks for your encouragement.
‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus…
My faith is imperfect, at best. And I know GOD loves me and is still working on me.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you (and me) will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6 (ESV)
Oh, for grace to trust Him more.
Thanks for your commiserating and for the wonderful verse, Doug. Nice to know I’m not alone.
It is good to bare the soul and also a correct assumption on your part that it would help someone! Surely all of us relate to pieces of your story, as I did (like stealing coins from mom and knowing it was sin!). Thank you for the hard, sweet message you brought here.
Yes, baring the soul has been good for me. Big sigh of relief. Thanks for encouraging me, Marilee.
You simply explained something very complicated. Thanks for writing that, Norma. I especially liked your spiritual breakthrough: God loves me!
Yes, it was complicated, but the passage of time helped bring perspective, which is one good thing about growing older. Thanks for building me up, Donna!