My Personal Journey to Faith

I didn’t grow up in a faith-based environment, yet somehow, my faith was always strong. In fact, I think not having it all handed to me is what made me lean on God even more. I didn’t have much, but that emptiness gave me room to search for something bigger than myself.

I was an orphan — a little girl who prayed constantly for a family. I remember watching strangers walk into the orphanage, pick out my friends and classmates, and leave me behind. Each time, my heart would sink.

I wondered why I wasn’t chosen.Why wasn’t I good enough to be adopted?What was wrong with me?

Those questions followed me into my teenage years and even into adulthood. For the longest time, I believed I was unlovable, unwanted — that there must be something about me that made people turn away.

But my faith kept me grounded through it all. Even when I was hurting, even when I was questioning my worth, I prayed. I waited. I believed. And little by little, I began to see that God hadn’t abandoned me. He was guiding me, teaching me patience, shaping me into the woman I am today.

My journey with faith has been far from perfect. There were moments I wrestled with doubt, anger, and frustration. But I’ve also experienced moments of deep peace, answered prayers, and the quiet reassurance that I am seen, I am wanted, and I am loved.

And then I got adopted. You’d think that would be the happy ending to my prayers, right?But that’s when life got even harder.

I felt like I lost my faith during that season. My anger and confusion became louder than my prayers. Nothing about the Bible made sense to me. I didn’t understand why God would create me knowing I’d have to live a life that felt so heavy, so meaningless. I would say things like, “I didn’t ask Jesus to die for me,” or “Why did God put me here, knowing I would feel like nothing matters?” The questions never stopped, and the silence I felt from God only made me more bitter.

Depression began to consume me. I felt like something dark was inside me, controlling my thoughts and filling me with hopelessness. I couldn’t see beauty anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. My own body felt like a prison, and the desire to escape it was always there.

One night in May, after everyone had gone to bed, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. I sat on the floor, knife in hand, ready to do the irreversible. In that moment, I prayed — asking God to help me, because I didn’t have the strength to keep living. Sometime in the middle of those prayers, I fell asleep on the floor.

The next morning, I woke up feeling lighter. Not healed, not joyful — but lighter. I remember my mom asking me to unload the dishwasher, and I just did it. No irritation, no fight left in me. Something had shifted. I think my older brother Nathaniel even noticed that something was different.

That night, I gave my life to Jesus.

But my story doesn’t end there. Faith didn’t suddenly erase my struggles. I still wrestled with anger, with doubt, with sadness. I needed medication, and it helped me tremendously. Slowly, with time, I started to see that God never left me — even when I turned away from Him, even when I was at my darkest.

When I got married, I wanted my marriage to be centered on God — and it was. It was beautiful, and I was happy. Becoming a wife wasn’t hard, but letting go of my past so I could step fully into my new role was. The first few years of marriage were a breeze, but eventually, I started to feel the same darkness I felt when I first got adopted.

I felt the evil again. My body felt it. My mind felt it. And it started consuming me once more. I sought help right away and did everything I could not to slip back into that place. But once again, I turned away from Jesus. I couldn’t understand why He would allow me to feel this way again — why He would allow the war in Ukraine, why He would allow so much evil in the world.

I gave up. I went silent. I became bitter.

Recently, a tragic event happened in the U.S., and many people know the one I’m talking about — the assassination of Charlie Kirk.I’ve listened to many of his teachings and debates before, but this time something shifted in me. Nothing else had made me feel like I could turn back to Jesus — until that moment.

I felt inspired to try again. To truly reach back to God and seek Him — not just out of desperation, but out of a real desire to know Him for who He is. Right now, I’m on that path of rediscovering my faith — the faith I had before my prayers were answered, back when it was pure and constant.

God has never changed through all my struggles. I believe He uses people for His good and for the good of His creation. And I want to believe this is all part of His plan — that I’m meant to grow through this, to find my mission, and to live out the reason He placed me here. I want to believe that anything He allows is a part of His plan, I truly do - but, as a human, my mind will never fully understand why He allows things to happen and the way they happen. As I keep on this path, I pray that I will keep running to God even when this world makes no sense to me at all. I pray that I will do my best to try seeking Him and I hope one day I will eventually know who He is.

Ana