Welcome! My name is Brielle Javier, the head writer here at Sunny Days Ahead. #FindingFaith is a small series where I share how I found my faith again, the tools that I used, and the advice I have for those taking their very first steps with God and even those who were on their walk with him already but may have taken a detour along the way and want to get back on track!
A little bit of my back story
I grew up in a Christian household and my grandfather was a pastor for about 20 years. I went to all the revivals, the vacation bible schools, the lock in’s, the holyweens, you name it. I even got involved in the Good News club when I was in elementary school. For those that don’t know the good news club was an after school program where we gathered to eat snacks, read scripture, and worship the Lord together. I actually formed a great relationship with one of the mentors. She even became a mentor outside of the program. Unfortunately when I graduated to middle school, we lost touch. I still think about her to this day. When I got to high school I started to dabble in some youth groups.
A detour from faith
When I was about 12 years old, my grandfather had retired from preaching at our church. We would attend service sometimes when the new pastor took position but that stopped due to new church drama. I then decided to take a break from the church scene for about a year almost two years. I felt myself starting to lose faith as well as start to become more of the world, which as a teen that’s one of the most dangerous things you can do because we’re so impressionable at that time in our lives.
So I went 5 minutes up the road to my nearest church and after 2 visits I joined! This church was smaller than my once family’s church. Majority of the congregation were elderly and few were youth. The Youth group was kind of odd because most of the youth were toddlers to about 10 year olds. There were only about 7-8 teens. Which may seem like an okay number but they weren’t always there so sometimes there would only be 3 of us. I went to that church for about a year but stopped due to some drama my friend at the time started with a boy that went to the church. I was also in her brothers wedding that they had at the church. Her brother and his now divorced wife if I’m not mistaken, never paid the church for the ceremony so I felt odd going back after those incidents. So I took another break. This break was short because I then found a new church that a lot of the kids at my high school were attending.
I thought man this is gonna be great! I’ll finally have the youth group I have dreamed of. This church was great, they had a good age range, they sung new music, and the youth group was awesome. Until it wasn’t. We had a lock in and it made me realize things were not what they were cracked up to be. I noticed that everyone in the youth group were actually very clique. And if you weren’t a part of the cool clique at school, you probably weren’t when it came to youth group. At the lock in, I took it as a chance to ask my questions that had been on my mind for years now. Let me tell you, the looks that I got were crazy. As a believer in science, I asked things like “if energy can’t be created or destroyed, where did God come from?” and “if God is a loving God, why does he take the lives of newborns?” My Youth pastor tried her best but in the end she couldn’t answer me. I then felt judged and not welcome. So I left the church again and this time for about 5 years. In those five years I visited religions like Buddhism and Paganism. For a while I want to say about 3 years I identified as pagan. But somethings still didn’t add up. One of the biggest mistakes I made was to base God off of Christians. I used the actions of imperfect humans to determine my beliefs of a perfect God. Never do that, ever. Because if you do you will put out the flame of your faith so fast. I figured if those die hard Christians can act that way, I don’t want to be a part of that. So what changed I’m sure you’re wondering?
Seeing a sign to get back on track
I had been having an unfulfilling feeling in my life and in my marriage. I didn’t feel like my life had purpose, I was lost. I felt like my marriage was missing something. It had to, why else did I feel like it was falling apart faster than it was built? As you know Kobe Bryant and his daughter recently passed away in a helicopter crash. It’s been all over social media including tik-tok. My sister was on
tik-tok a few days after the accident and I kept hearing a clip of an old song I used to love (and still do). I kept thinking to myself why does she keep playing only that part of the song? It started to aggravate my spirit. So I asked “why do you only keep playing that part of the song? There’s more to it!” She said “it’s not me it’s the song everyone keeps using for their Kobe tribute videos.“
They say if you have a song stuck on your head, play the song from start to finish and it won’t be stuck in your head anymore. So I played Oceans by Hillsong United. Well it may have not been stuck in my head anymore, but it stuck to my heart. In that moment I felt the presence of God and everything made sense. I remembered my question, “if God is loving, why does he take the lives of newborns?”. And I finally got and understood the answer. Those babies are evangelist and they didn’t even know it. They came and went to teach someone something. If it wasn’t for the tragedy Kobe and his daughter faced, that song would of never been used for all those videos, I wouldn’t have played the song, I would have never been pushed in the right direction back to God, and I would still be suffering.
The Bible says in Mattew 7:7 “seek and you shall find”. I was seeking purpose, understanding, stability in my marriage, and peace in my life. Since I have welcomed God back into my life, everything I was searching for, I am finding. I’ve found my purpose: to share my testimony and the good news through content creation. I’ve found a greater understanding for what I’m meant to understand. My marriage is stronger and because I’m including faith in it like I should’ve from the start, my marriage feels stable. I don’t worry about what he or she thinks anymore. I don’t stress myself to the point of tears over money because I know God will provide. Peace has been restored.
No matter where you are, who you are, or where you’ve been, Gods waiting for you. He’s waiting for you with the answers you’re seeking. All you have to do is reach out. A friend of mine is trying to get back on track with God and I was telling him the other day, You don’t have to bare all the weight in this life. That’s the great part about God is he’s there to help you because he genuinely wants too! You’re his creation. So think of our relationship with God as a life time warranty. Anything goes wrong, anything gets broken, you just send yourself back to him and he will fix you. He will repair what is broken. But you have to call him to activate the warranty.
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