Part 2 of 5 of My Journey From Faith.
“That’s how faith began for me. Not as doctrine, but as oxygen.”
I didn’t come to faith by following a map.
I washed up on its shore.
At that point in life, I was mostly made of mistakes—some loud, some quiet, some that still lingered, like smoke on clothes. I wasn’t trying to be bad. I was just lost. And tired of feeling that way.
So when I heard that the maker of the universe not only knew me but wanted me, it felt like someone had opened a window in a locked room.
That’s how faith began for me. Not as doctrine, but as oxygen.
For the first time, life had edges. Right and wrong weren’t abstract—they were rails to hold onto. A way to feel steady in the chaos I’d created.
I grew up around church—Catholic uniforms, Pentecostal revivals, a little bit of everything—but belief had always been choreography. Stand, sit, kneel, sing. It was background noise until college, when I met people who talked about Jesus like they’d just stepped out for coffee.
They had this glow—like purpose had good posture.
I wanted that.
So I went to Bible study. I didn’t know the language yet—quiet times, backsliding, accountability partners—but I liked the certainty. Everyone seemed so sure of who they were, and for once, I wanted to feel sure too.
But certainty didn’t come easy. I’d go home from those gatherings buzzing with conviction, only to wake up the next day in the same body, the same mess. I’d sit in the back of class pretending to take notes while quietly cataloging the ways I’d already failed at being good.
Nights were the worst.
That’s when everything I’d been avoiding came to visit—every lie, every regret, every decision I swore I’d never make again. It all arrived like clockwork, carrying its own little sermon.
And yet, somewhere in the middle of the shame and exhaustion, I still wanted God. Not the Sunday morning version, not the youth group slogans—something real. Something that could stand in the same room as all my mistakes and not leave.
One night in my dorm room, I stopped running.
I sat on the edge of the bed, head down, words circling but refusing to land. The air felt thick, like before a storm.
“God,” I said, “if you’re real… I’m here.”
Silence. But not the usual kind.
This one felt charged—like the room was holding its breath.
I closed my eyes and, for a moment, I could swear someone was standing over me.
Not frightening. Not visible. Just present.
The kind of presence that feels more like weight than sound.
I don’t know how long I sat there. Maybe a minute. Maybe an hour.
But when I finally opened my eyes, the air felt different—lighter somehow, like something had lifted.
I didn’t have language for it then. I just knew I wasn’t alone.
The next morning, the world looked exactly the same—
but it wasn’t.
Everything felt turned up.
The sky was louder. The light sharper.
Even the air seemed to hum, as if everything had been quietly alive this whole time and I was only just noticing.
Colors felt like they meant something.
Music carried weight.
And for the first time in years, so did I.
Faith made the world vibrate.
It didn’t just explain things—it illuminated them.
I wasn’t just forgiven, I was awake.
I threw myself into it—church, prayer, worship, Scripture.
I wanted to learn the whole map of this new country I’d just arrived in.
And for a long time, that hunger carried me.
Faith felt like coming home.
Like stepping into a story that had been waiting for me all along.
And for years, I lived there—inside that story, inside that certainty,
convinced I’d found the thing my soul had been chasing.
That was the beginning.
The first spark.
The start of a relationship that would shape every part of me.
