I grew up going to church with my parents, thinking it was cool and always believing everything I heard, and that never changed.

Though I always believed… I don’t think I ever fully trusted.

When I was seven, I gave my life to Christ at a school club, but as a 7-year-old, I didn’t really grasp the weight of what that meant. I believed, but I never had an actual relationship with God. It wasn’t really taught to me like that.

Any relationship with God I did have diminished during COVID. I was hanging out with non-believers and dealing with the challenges that quarantine gave me. I drifted and I let my anchor come up. I remember thinking that I didn’t really care to even try for a relationship with God because what was the point?It wasn’t until my sophomore year – after a very challenging freshman year – that I recommitted my life and found Jesus and hope again. I had met a boy and as any 15-year-girl would do, I thought, “Oh, I’ll bring him to church so we can hang out. My parents can’t say no to that.”

(I wasn’t wrong. They didn’t say no, but obviously they saw right through that.)

Despite my reasoning for wanting to go to church every Sunday, God used it to speak to me. Slowly I started to enjoy going again and not even caring if this boy showed up or not because now I was going for me.I started attending my school’s church club and actually built a relationship with God. I went through a really tough time losing family right after this and God used it to really show me how important my relationship with Him is.

He gave me clarity about the toxic relationships I was in with certain friends and just the way I was spending my time in general. Because of this clarity, I decided that I would step out of my comfort zone and go to winter camp.

I would say this is the closest thing to a specific time where I had a radical change in my life. I was already anxious about going to camp, being away from home and not having any friends up there, but right before I left, my world got rattled again.

Literally five minutes before I turned off my phone for the weekend, I got a text from my boyfriend saying that some tests he had done at the doctors showed possible cancer cells. I felt like my world was shattered. Here I was, just starting to live the right way with God and start to have hope and faith for life again, and this was thrown at me.

Honestly I think this was a true test that God was giving me. Here I was with this new relationship with Him, and He was testing to see how I would react.

It’s these moments in life where either you pull away and get angry with God, or you lean in and trust.

It’s not always easy to lean in, but it is worth it. He brought me down to my lowest point. I thought this wonderful Christian boy, who had stuck with me through some really hard times, was going to be ripped away from me. It broke me.

However, that weekend at camp, the sermons spoke to me. The worship filled my spirit and I left that mountain filled with the Holy Spirit and knowing deep in my heart that no matter what happens in my life, God would provide. He would always be there for me.A month later, I decided to get baptized and it was the best decision of my life.That year was one of the best years of my life, as well as one of the hardest. Growing up in the church there wasn’t just one moment in my life where I did a total 180. There were several smaller moments where God spoke to me and used people and situations to change my heart.

My relationship with God is far from perfect. I still mess up, I hurt people, I sin, but with God I know that I am forgiven and that He is always there for me.

When I was a baby my parents dedicated me with the verse Jeremiah 29:11:

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”

It’s a popular passage of Scripture, but the deeper I grow in my walk with the Lord, the more that I am reminded of it. The hard times still come but I always thank God no matter what I am going through.I thank Him for being there and for being the one constant in my life.

By: Paisley Sandoval
High School Ministry Senior, Class of 2025

Paisley Sandoval is a graduating senior from Los Osos High School. After high school, she plans on attending Chaffey College to study Environmental Science.