For the first forty years of my life, I did not believe in God. I wasn’t angry with Him; I simply didn’t believe He existed. I focused on building a life, pursuing goals, and finding success according to the world’s standards.

Then everything changed.

In 2013, I became seriously ill. Over the next two years, I underwent three surgeries and had multiple organs removed. What began as a physical crisis quickly became a spiritual one.

For the first time, I began asking questions I had spent decades avoiding:

What happens when I die?
Is God real?
Have I lived a life of purpose?
What if everything I believe is wrong?

During one hospital stay, I prayed a simple prayer for comfort. Shortly afterward, the hospital chaplain walked into my room and prayed with me. During that prayer time, something shifted. At the time, I couldn’t fully explain what happened. Looking back, I recognize it as one of my first encounters with the Holy Spirit.

Something had changed.

I told my husband, Will, what I was experiencing. He took me to a small bible-based church in Atlantic Beach, Florida where I heard the gospel clearly and received answers to my initial questions about a saving faith.

Over the next two years, I was discipled in a small group and came to understand that I was separated from God and in need of a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. On October 25, 2015, I was baptized in the Atlantic Ocean as a public declaration of my faith.

The suffering I would never have chosen became one of the primary ways God revealed Himself to me. What felt like the worst season of my life became the beginning of my greatest story—and gave me a heart for truth and the simple, saving gospel of Jesus Christ.