Wanting God But Not Knowing How - Part 5

MY STORY

There was always something in me that wanted God.

Even when I didn’t know how to live for Him.

Even when I was confused.

Even when I was one foot in and one foot out.

Even when my life did not look surrendered.

The desire was still there.

When I was young and my oldest daughter was a baby, my dad would talk to me often about taking her to church and raising her in church.

I remember saying something like, “If church is so great, why don’t you take her?”

At the time, I had seen faith talked about, but I didn’t always understand what it meant to see it lived.

So my dad started taking my daughter to church.

But I didn’t like the thought of her going without me.

So I started going too.

And somewhere in that season, I had an encounter with God.

It was real.

It touched something in me.

But I didn’t know how to live from it.

I didn’t understand discipleship. I didn’t understand prayer as a daily relationship. I didn’t understand reading the Word as life. I didn’t understand surrender as something formed in you over time.

Things that may seem like common sense to someone raised in that kind of lifestyle were not common practice for me.

I knew Bible stories.

I knew about God.

But I had not been taught how to walk with Him.

So after a few months, I drifted.

Not because God wasn’t real.

Not because the encounter didn’t matter.

But because I had hunger without roots.

I had an experience without discipleship.

I had belief without formation.

Later, when my husband and I were young and he was in the military, we moved out of state, and I found myself wanting church again.

I went looking.

I wanted a place to belong.

I visited churches, but no one really spoke to me.

No one noticed.

And when you already struggle with belonging, silence can feel like confirmation that you don’t.

So I stopped going.

The struggle was real for me.

The line between God and the world.

The desire to do right and the patterns that pulled me back.

The hunger for something more and the lack of knowing how to actually live it.

People say things like, “Fake it till you make it.”

But for me, that was toxic.

Because I already knew how to fake being okay.

I didn’t need more performance.

I needed truth.

I needed someone to teach me how to walk with God.

Looking back now, I can say it this way:

I wanted God long before I understood how to live surrendered to Him.

And that hunger mattered.

Even when I didn’t know what to do with it.

To continue My Story read Part 6