Faith Through a New Believers Eyes

A year ago I was bitter, angry. I wrote a blog post detailing my one sided feud with God as I felt betrayed, forgotten, unloved by the one I’ve dedicated my life to. After years in the church I was already feeling detached as I was disappointed time and time again by those in those four walls. Even without having a church home the past few years I still identified as a Christian and worked on my personal walk.

Through many personal and family battles I stayed true to my faith. That was until not only I felt abandoned; but my child, the one I loved the most in the world appeared to be forgotten as well.

I didn’t know if my relationship with God could withstand this, I felt so disconnected in a way I haven’t in my entire existence.

And then there was Alex.

Over the past months in the hospital, a TikTok mutual became like a sister to me, although on different paths of the same journey, I had someone who understood me. Even if it was from 4 hours away in the NICU of a different hospital.

One day our conversation shifted from tube feeds and oxygen saturations, medication weans, to God.

Unlike me who had praised God from the start of the storm, until my fire went out, she started this journey a stranger to Jesus Christ but found him amidst the hurricane.

She had a passion, an unfaltering faith like I hadn’t seen in a very long time.

She didn’t have the church cliche sayings  and complacency, and sympathetic eyes of a many years Christian.

She had the earth splitting devotion and passion of someone who had been to hell and back but found solace. She wasn’t worried about how she looked to the church but how God saw her and what he had done for her.

To see someone in a very similar situation, unsure of their baby’s future and what surgeries and needs to come, and to be so grateful to God to at least be here with their child still. To be grateful for each moment he gave them instead of angry for what brought her to this moment. At first I questioned how can she be so sure, how can she go through this and still pray after disappointment after disappointment? And then it slowly turned to a, if she can and she’s just finding him, why can’t I?

I don’t think she knows it but our first conversations about God started a shift in me. My heart began to thaw, and I slowly started to replace resentment for gratefulness. A year later I sit here with nothing but gratitude for the year we have had. For the first year in a long time I ended 2024 so grateful for each moment (which is crazy considering my daughter had open heart surgery this year?!). I feel nothing but joy and peace for this next year. And gratefulness for God for all he has done for us this past year. And especially grafeful for  God bringing me my sweet friend Alex.