Faith Posts
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Welcome to The Mustard Seed — my faith journey in words. My full story is below.
I don't have a big "aha" moment of coming to Christ.
No blinding light. No dramatic altar call. No single day I can point to and say that was when everything changed. Like most things in my life, it has been a long, slow process. Endurance is my middle name. Things have happened that I don't fully appreciate until many years later.
Maybe that's why the mustard seed has always made sense to me.
The Planting
It started in Chico, California, at Trinity United Methodist Church, where I was baptized as an infant. My dad was baptized with me. I don't remember it, of course. That's the thing about seeds — they don't need you to believe in them to take root.
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| Trinity United Methodist Church, Chico, CA |
What I do remember is a terrifying encounter with a Lutheran pastor who was supposed to answer my questions about the devil and hell and instead only deepened them. I remember a woman in a Christmas pew in Stockton who made me feel unwelcome before the first hymn. I remember a neighborhood pastor's family who invited us to church, and going, and then my parents' marriage quietly coming apart, and faith quietly getting buried under everything else that was falling.
The seed went into the ground. And stayed there for a long time.
The Wilderness
I won't tell you everything about the wilderness years. Some of it is too personal for a page, and some of it is still being written. What I will tell you is that I spent a long time lost — in my relationship with food, in my sense of self, in the quiet chaos of a life that looked fine from the outside and wasn't.
What I found, eventually, was a room full of people who understood. Overeaters Anonymous gave me a program, a community, and a higher power I was finally ready to name. I turned my life over to God — not perfectly, not permanently, but genuinely. For the first time since Chico, the seed felt like it had water.
I am forever grateful for that program. Not because of the weight I lost, but because it reintroduced me to my faith. To that little mustard seed that had been waiting all along to be tended.
The Returning
We found our church the way a lot of people do — on Easter Sunday, hoping to find a home. We fell in love with the pastor, the message, the whole package, and kept coming back. Then one Sunday there was a baptism ceremony. Something moved in me. I stood up and got in line — no plan, no warning, just a "Yes" that came from somewhere deeper than logic. I could feel my husband fall in behind me. But the best part came when I turned around and saw my two daughters waiting in line with us. The four of us were baptized together that day at Crossroads Grace in Manteca. That little seed that was planted in Chico had grown into something big enough to hold my whole family.
The Tending
The Returning was real. So was everything that came after it.
Faith, I've learned, is not a destination. It's a practice. Some seasons I am closer to God than others. Some years I fast and pray and feel His presence clearly. Other years the house gets swept clean and then slowly, quietly fills back up with the wrong things — and I have to begin again.
Luke 11:24-26 stopped me cold during Bible study recently. Jesus describes a house that gets swept clean but left empty — and how the thing that was cast out returns worse than before. I put a question mark next to those verses before I even finished reading them. I recognized myself in them immediately.
Cleaning up is not enough. The house has to be filled with something better. Something stronger. That is the work I keep returning to — imperfectly, stubbornly, gratefully.
I am 58 years old. I am still running. Still training. Still writing. Still reaching.
The mustard seed is still growing.
This page will grow over time as I continue to share pieces of my faith journey. If any part of this resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.
Beautiful how God never gives up on us.
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