My faith and belief in God are as unconventional as my life itself.

My faith isn’t something neat or structured. It isn’t something I can package into a perfect explanation. But it is deeply real. It has been my anchor, my survival, the thread that has held me together when everything else unraveled.

What follows is my attempt to share what faith means to me and why I believe.

I don’t follow Jesus because I was raised to. I don’t cling to faith because I fear the alternative. My upbringing did not include Sunday school lessons or prayers before dinner. Both of my parents came from religious backgrounds, but because of their own experiences, they chose not to raise us within any belief structure. Today, I remain the only believer in my immediate family.

At 20 years old, I found myself pregnant with my first son. It was not planned, but never would I call it a mistake. I was a lost and lonely girl searching for love anywhere I could find it. That search led me to the dimly lit, cloud-filled rooms of drug use, where my own mind was muted, and the substances I took were free to consume me.

And then, in the middle of that haze, I found out I was pregnant.

By the grace of God, the desire for drugs disappeared in an instant. My mind cleared, my body sobered, and my heart became consumed with only one thing … this life growing inside me. I had never wanted children, never imagined myself as a mother, and had never considered how I would raise a child. But suddenly, nothing else mattered.

When my son was born, I experienced a love so overwhelming, so all-consuming, that it terrified me. I held him in my arms, his perfect little heart beating against my chest, and I knew, I could not fail him. I could not be the reason he ever felt the kind of pain I had carried my whole life. The weight of that realization crushed me. How could I protect him from the hurt I knew too well? How could I raise him when I still felt so lost?

At the time, I had just been hired at my first salon. It was obvious to anyone who met me that I was wandering, searching, untethered. The owner of the salon was a believer. Not the kind who preached at people, but the kind who lived his faith through love. His ministry wasn’t behind a pulpit; it was in the way he treated people, the way he made everyone feel seen. He made it his mission to bring the love of Jesus to anyone and everyone. He never forced, never judged, never pressured… only loved.

 He invited me to church more times than I could count, and for a long time, I resisted. I expected judgment, condemnation, rejection. But eventually, I went. Sitting in the very last row, ready to walk out at any moment, I braced myself for words that would feel foreign, harsh, unwelcoming.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead, I heard words that spoke to my soul. Words I had always felt but never let myself believe. It wasn’t foreign. It wasn’t scary. It didn’t attack me like I had expected. It felt like home.

For the first time, I didn’t feel like an outsider looking in, I felt seen and known.

Because I wasn’t raised in church and had never opened a Bible before, I had no framework for what a believer was meant to be. I didn’t filter scripture through the lens of tradition or religious expectations. Everything I learned was new to me, and because of that, every word felt raw, unfiltered, and deeply personal.

As I read, the stories began to come to life. I had incredible people around me who never made me feel ignorant or unworthy. They answered my 3 AM phone calls when I had questions, sat with me as I wrestled with the hard parts, and never once made me feel like I had to believe a certain way to belong. In fact, it felt like they were learning alongside me, as if my wrestling with faith somehow deepened their own understanding.

That’s the thing about God.

His goodness is for everyone, always. It isn’t reserved for the perfect or the ones who seem to have it all figured out. It reaches into the most broken places, into the lives of those who feel unworthy, and reminds us that we have always been enough. No one is a mistake. Every part of us matters. And together, we are more magnificent than we ever could be alone.

The more I read, the more I saw a single, undeniable thread woven through the entire Bible …

LOVE.

Love that is patient, love that is relentless, love that chooses us even when we don’t choose ourselves. Love that does not waver when we fall short, but instead calls us to rise again. God’s unconditional, unwavering love for every single person on this planet was written on every page. I didn’t see the condemnation and wrath I had always heard about. I didn’t see a rigid set of rules meant to control people. What I saw were real, flawed human beings, walking through seasons of pain and joy, failure and redemption. And in every moment, through every high and low, there was God’s love.  Steady, unshaken, and always present.

I didn’t see hatred for those who lived differently. I didn’t see people being cast out for their imperfections. I didn’t see a God who demanded perfection in order for someone to matter. I saw broken people being loved, lifted up, and embraced exactly as they were. And in their stories, I saw pieces of myself. I saw how their struggles, their resilience, and their faith had been recorded not as rules to follow, but as a guide, one that was meant to remind me that I was never alone in my own journey.

When I reached the Gospels, Jesus came to life for me.

His words weren’t just teachings; they were a reflection of the kind of love I had always longed for. A love that did not demand perfection but instead welcomed me as I was, flaws and all. Until then, He had been more of a vague, distant figure. But reading about Him … His words, His actions, the way He moved through the world … something shifted inside me. Here was this man, born into poverty, with no status or privilege. A child, just like every other child, unique and full of purpose. He had no wealth, no power by the world’s standards, yet His presence and love changed everything. And the more I read, the more I realized, this was the love I my heart so desperately longed for,  the love I had always hoped existed.

People like me, the ones who felt damaged, the outliers, the ones who had lost themselves along the way, were the very ones Jesus sought out first. The broken, the hurting, the wandering souls weren’t overlooked or cast aside. They were seen. They were chosen. They were the ones He called to Himself, the ones He wrapped in love and healed. The only people He ever corrected were those who saw themselves as righteous, those who used religion as a weapon rather than a place of refuge.

He taught that each person is uniquely created, loved without condition, and designed for connection. We are not meant to live isolated, self-contained lives. We were created for connection, for community, for the kind of love that holds us together when we feel like falling apart. Our healing is not just for us, it ripples outward, touching the lives of those around us. Each of us holds something essential, something that contributes to the well-being of all. When one of us is hurting, we all feel it. When one of us is lifted, we all rise. We matter as individuals, but together, we are what makes us human.

That’s the very purpose of our existence … to love and to be loved. 

To me, this is what it means to be a follower of Christ. It is not about rules, appearances, or trying to fit into a religious mold. It is about LOVE. Unshaken, unconditional, and freely given. It is about seeing people as Jesus saw them, without judgment or condemnation, but with compassion and grace. It is about knowing that faith is not about figuring it all out, but about trusting that love is the answer.

This is what faith means to me. It is the quiet knowing that even in my worst moments, I am not forsaken. It is the assurance that grace is not just a word, but a reality that continues to reshape me every single day. It is the belief that no one is beyond redemption, that no one is unseen, that we are all part of something greater than ourselves. It is the knowing that even in the darkest moments, we are not alone. And that no matter how lost we may feel, love is always calling us home.