I was raised in the church, faithfully attending with my grandmother, and was saved as a child at a Billy Graham crusade in 1983. I was later baptized in the church we attended.
However, as I became a young adult, living on my own and navigating the demands of work and life, I slowly began to drift. Church attendance became sporadic, and while I still believed in God, my relationship with Him grew distant. Prayer became transactional – a quick request when I needed help – and my Bible gathered dust for years.
This pattern continued through my marriage to someone who didn’t share my faith and as we started our family. God was still there, but He was largely on the sidelines of my life.
Even when I returned to my childhood church after my children were born, my engagement was minimal. I rarely attended, didn’t read my bible, and my prayers were few and far between. My relationship with God remained distant.
Life then threw a curveball: my marriage became rocky, and it eventually ended in divorce. This was a profoundly difficult time. I remember being on my knees, begging God to save my marriage, clinging to the hope of reconciliation.
God, in His infinite wisdom and love, had a different plan. What felt like a devastating loss at the time, however, turned into an unexpected blessing. He didn’t save that marriage, and looking back, I can clearly see why it was for the best. That painful divorce, in ways I couldn’t comprehend at the time, was what led me back to God. It was in that brokenness that I finally stopped drifting and started truly seeking Him.
It is because of that time I now have a deep, personal, and close relationship with God. He met me at my lowest point and transformed what felt like an ending into a beautiful new beginning.