Faith Journey

This post is a doozy, to make up for my recent lazy lack of writing. So you may as well go get a glass of wine or two and maybe a sliver of chocolate and settle in. If you hang in until the end, you should get an imaginary medal. Here goes:


I have never really sat down and written about how I came to faith. I know the popular term is “testimony” and I don’t judge anyone who uses it, but I think I prefer referring to my story in a different way because “testimony” feels like an internal word, one that may immediately insert a tiny wall between me and someone who isn’t on a similar path. In fact, before I started exploring the idea of God, the lingo always created a barrier that sent me running in the other direction, so I’m sensitive.

My story starts when I was four and I imagined God as just a giant head with a booming voice and Heaven merely a place that served my favorite junk food all the time. I was a junk food junkie. I’d sell my soul for a bowl of sugar cereal. Other than that, I didn’t think much about divine things. A few years later I graduated to swearing at God in my mind, almost unwillingly, in a test to see if anything bad would happen. Nothing did. But then again, I’m really short, have no chest, and am a mediocre singer at best, so perhaps I got mine.

I was baptized Catholic, but pretty much was a card-carrying Chreaster (we only went to church on Christmas and Easter,) from what I can remember. Maybe a few stints at Vacation Bible School here and there. I didn’t think about it much until junior high when I met a girl who lived in my neighborhood who was a Christian. She invited me to her youth group and I went a couple of times, but I was skeptical and resistant. Like so many others, my view of Christianity was highly informed by fallen televangelists. Anything that seemed like it wasn’t genuine turned me off. So when my friend took me to a night at the roller rink and her youth leader Dan stalked me on his skates all night, I was uncomfortable and highly agitated. I felt like he was just doing what he was supposed to do, but wasn’t really trying to get to know me as a person. He was trying to get me. For God. Zero points for Dan! But at least I was starting to contemplate God. In some ways I really wanted to believe. I just didn’t. And it felt like I couldn’t.

The search had begun, though, and when I was in my mid-teens and recovering from an eating disorder and some depression, I had an experience that resonated with me. Occasionally on Christmas Eve our family went to the service at the Crystal Cathedral. It was a non-threatening service because honestly, it felt more like a Christmas show. There were amazing performers, live animals, twinkle lights. I kind of dug it, but never really felt God there. This particular year we were seated in the balcony and at some point they invited people down to the front to be prayed for if they wanted to lay whatever burdens they were carrying down. I wanted peace. I craved relief. I found myself oblivious to what I thought my family might think and I wandered down to the front of that palatial place holding nearly 2800 people. When I got there, I kneeled on the steps of the altar along with everyone else who had come. Eventually a pastor of some sort placed his hand on my head and started to pray for me. Instantly my heart started pounding and the silos of grief started to release in a torrent of tears. Afterwards I felt lighter. Something had changed.

Several years later I spent a year in Australia as an exchange student and while I was there I went to church a couple of times. I didn’t love it. I thought the youth group games were babyish and queer. But I started questioning. A couple months into my stay I switched to a Catholic school from the public school - not for the religion, but because a) I always wanted to dress the part of a Catholic school girl and b) the local Catholic school was way more intimate and only had one other exchange student, while the giant public high school I was going to had 12. I had to take a Christian Studies class and my teacher, Mr. Gooley, was grateful for someone who had real questions about God and showed an interest. I also remember that some Christian performing group came and did some skits when I was at the public school during an assembly. At a public school, people! That would never happen in the U.S. They were even allowed to break us up into groups and talk to us about their faith. Bizarre side note: Eight years later I was doing refreshments at my theater company with a fellow actor and we somehow got on the topic of Australia. He told me that he had performed in a bunch of sketches at schools in the Sydney area. I proceeded to describe the sketches to him. We were both in the auditorium of Blaxland High in early 1989! I saw him perform! Crazy kooky, right?

I returned to the States and jumped into getting my general ed credits at a local junior college and started to audition for plays and short films. On one of my first auditions I was cast as the lead in a USC grad thesis film. A girl named Molly played my best friend and right away I knew there was something different about her. She had something I wanted, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. She was peaceful. At ease. People were drawn to her. Molly was very open about her faith, but more importantly, what she had seemed real. I asked questions, occasionally went to church with her or on my own, and joined her and a bunch of other Christians in the film industry on a mission trip to help build houses in Mexico. Still, I felt like an interloper. I didn’t wholeheartedly believe. I didn’t feel like I fully belonged.

Then, when I was 19, I fell in love for the first time with a guy in my German class. He was a Christian and went to church regularly with his family. But he didn’t speak the lingo. He was genuine and as we got to know each other I asked him, “Hey. I’ve responded to a bunch of altar calls at different churches. I’ve asked for forgiveness. I’ve prayed the prayer. Am I a Christian? Did this thing take or what?” “Do you believe in God?” “Yes.” “Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God and died for your sins?” “Yep.” “Then yes, you are.”

I had been waiting for some dynamic transformation. Something to signal the shift from unbelief to belief. Some knockout story to tell. But it had been a slow, gradual process. Funny, but once we had that conversation, I really started to change as a person. Suddenly I was keenly aware of my selfishness and impatience, of the moments I was unkind, greedy, or dishonest. I found myself suddenly apologizing to my brother and asking for his forgiveness in circumstances that would formerly end in a fight. I don’t think he knew what to make of it. I started letting other people go ahead of me when there was a food line at a party - no longer needing to make sure my own needs were met first. My perspective was shifting. Before I would have said I was a pretty good person. I mean I had a healthy respect for authority, I didn’t usually break the rules, I didn’t steal (well, except for the loose change I took from my dad’s bedroom when I was in elementary school so I could buy snacks at the public pool or the quarters I slipped out of my stepdad’s top drawer so I could play video games at the corner liquor store and buy Slim Jims, Funions, and candy. Again with the junk food.) My sudden awareness of my character and the subsequent shift in my thoughts and behaviors somehow served as further proof that God existed. I inherently knew that I didn’t just recognize those things about myself on my own. They were being shown to me, gently and mercifully. I was hungry to change. And change I did. I went to church with my boyfriend and his family at The Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton where the pastor was Chuck Swindoll, a kindly Texan who was a great teacher. He never came across as fake, but humble and full of integrity. I devoured his words, read his books, and dove in a little deeper.

When I transferred to The College of William and Mary for my final two years of college I went to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship on Friday nights to sing and listen to speakers. I occasionally visited a Bible study in the dorm next door. I attended a local church and was “adopted” by a sweet family who went there. I even went on a retreat, although I asked one of the speakers there a question and he took it as a personal affront. I just wanted to know if Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam, and all people came from Adam and Eve, then who were these wives that the Bible says they married? Frankly, I would have been absolutely fine if he said “I don’t know”, but he was threatened by me asking the question. But faith is just that…a leap of faith. There are some questions we will never know the definitive answers to. And I’m okay with that. I’ve had enough things happen in my life that have supported the existence of God for me. I don’t need to know or understand everything.

After graduation I headed back to California and within six months had moved to Los Angeles as Molly’s roommate. I went to a church with a lot of artists and attended a Friday night Bible study at someone’s house, but always ended up falling asleep in the guy’s living room halfway through. When that church no longer felt like the right place for me, I hopped around. I even joined a gospel choir at a predominantly African-American Baptist church, which I loved. They were gracious to the little white girl who couldn’t sing. When I was 24, I auditioned for Actors Co-op, a Christian theater company in the heart of Hollywood. I had been longing for community in the vast and lonely City of Angels and my prayers were answered. I hadn’t been rooted anywhere for a significant period of time and I resisted going to the Presbyterian church where our two theaters were located, but I eventually ended up going there basically out of convenience. After a few years they started a warehouse service, which eventually split off into my current church, Ecclesia. I had finally found a home. The teaching and people were very grounded and real, I believed in the way people were trying to live and loved their heart for social justice issues. For the first time since I started going to church, I wanted to get involved. I liked what they were doing. I rarely missed a Sunday. I still occasionally felt like a fraud because of moments of doubt and a long season of feeling stagnant, devoid of any growth, but I felt like being there was right.

There are little moments along the journey where I have experienced the unmistakable presence of God. One of the biggest truths I know that if we all were to grasp the depth and intensity of God’s love and acceptance for us, the world wouldn’t suffer so much. A myriad of evils would just cease to exist. My favorite story about God’s love goes like this: When I was in my 20’s a woman from my theater company commissioned me to make a picture frame for her little boy’s baby photo. I went over to her house to deliver the frame and ended up staying for dinner with her, her husband, and their sweet 2-year-old. I played with him, had a great meal, and went on my way. I bumped into the woman about three years later and she said “Phillip’s been asking about you and has been wanting to have you over for dinner. Do you know the chair where you sat that night for dinner he calls ‘Staci’s chair”?” Her son was now five! Why did he remember that dinner? Not one to refuse such a sweet request from a 5-year-old, I made plans to join them for dinner again. That night, as I pulled up to their house, I could see his little face as he waited in the front window. The minute my car pulled up, he went ballistic, running around the living room “She’s here! She’s here!” I knocked on the door and he opened it for me and gushed about how excited he was. We played again, like we did three years before, and at dinner he pulled out my chair like a little gentleman. When it was time for me to go, he asked his mom to take pictures of him with me. Then he wanted her to get out the video camera so he could have an even more tangible memory. I said goodbye, gave him a hug, and climbed in my car. And then......that little boy started running down the sidewalk alongside my car as I pulled away. Once I turned the corner, I pulled over. I was completely emotionally overwhelmed. I though “What did I do to deserve that kind of unabashed love from this tiny person? I did nothing extra special. I didn’t earn it.” I almost felt guilty underneath the weight of something so precious. It was then that these words, very clear, came to mind: “That’s how I love you.”   I knew it was God speaking to me.  It was the greatest lesson I’ve ever experienced on the character of Divine love.

Another clear communication from God was in 2006 when a couple showed up at our church and talked about their ministry in the foothills of the Himalayas in India working with persecuted people groups. As they shared their story and played a video about some of the amazing spiritual experiences they had witnessed or heard about, I was hit with the sense that one day I would be going to India. Specifically with those people. I had never had a lick of interest in visiting India, so it was a real surprise to me to feel that stirring in my heart. A year later I was sitting in church and recognized the woman sitting in front of me as the wife of that couple and I knew. I knew I was going to India. Sure enough, my pastor’s wife announced she was leading a trip to India in the late fall to work with several indigenous organizations – one working with a couple of doctors who ran a medical clinic and school in the slums of Dehra Dun, one working with IJM to determine how to support them best as they fought to free girls and women from human trafficking situations, and the last organization (helping persecuted people groups in the foothills of the Himalayas) run by the woman who was visiting our church that day and her husband. Immediately after church, without hesitation, I walked up to my friend and said “I think I’m supposed to go.” I didn’t worry about the cost or the time off of work. People talk about being called to things and this was the first time I experienced something like that. Obeying without question seemed like the only response.

And now, in this season, as I look back at my life, I see all the guideposts that led me to where I am now in my life. God is showing me why I am where I am, pointing out, “See what I did here? Did you notice that little clue? Isn’t it cool how early I planted this seed?”

I find myself longing for a deeper intimacy with God. To understand the whole thing not just intellectually, but to feel so connected and in touch with His desires for me that it’s impossible to separate that from my daily living. I’ve asked to know more of the spiritual world. To understand just a flicker of the supernatural. To have my faith increased. Slowly these things are coming to pass. I am coming to a greater acceptance of my place in this life. Even in the suffering I am finding peace. I am grateful for the past 20 years of becoming more grounded, roots growing and anchoring on things that matter most. Many times I fought it kicking and screaming. I am Irish and Italian, so I can be a little feisty.

Most of the time I couldn’t detect the changes and often wondered why I wasn’t better or as good as someone else. Less flawed. But I finally recognize that I am imperfect, but loved. I am known fully, and still loved. Forgiven and accepted. Always.