In this episode, Gina has a conversation with Courtney Nafus about her journey from atheism to relationship with Jesus. She shares how she became a Christian through an encounter with God alone in her living room. What started by simply pondering questions in her head while folding laundry, turned into an encounter with God’s overwhelming love and revelation that changed her life and perspective.
Read the blog below to catch the highlights, or click the play button below to hear the whole episode:
The Search for Absolute Truth
Courtney:
So we really did not have any faith in my household growing up. In fact, it’s embarrassing to admit this now, but I was always very vocal about my disbelief in God, even from a young age. I don’t know exactly where that stemmed from, I just know that even as a young child, I was like, “There’s just no way.”
I was known as an atheist or agnostic. Call it what you want. I didn’t believe in God. I didn’t know Jesus. I didn’t even believe in Jesus. I didn’t actually know the difference between Jesus and God The Father.
I didn’t understand anything. I had no context. So pretty much that was my belief until I was 33. I was just a month shy of turning 33 when I met Jesus in my living room. I had explored other things that I thought were spiritual but that always felt inauthentic, something was missing.
There was a puzzle piece missing, and one of the things I remember very clearly from a young age, one of the reasons I always said I didn’t believe in God, was because if there’s one creator and one source of everything, how could there be so many variations?
So I could never wrap my head around it. It’s like, “Well, if there’s one creator or one source, why are there so many variations of religions and doctrines and all these things?” I could not really get past that or rectify it in my mind.
So fast forward to March of 2021, I was in a place where I had gone through a number of years of disconnecting from anything that I was attaching to, whether it be people or concepts or beliefs, anything at all.
Because nothing seemed to feel right in my soul. I was doing a lot of just soul searching and like quieting my mind from outside influences like people giving me their opinions and all kinds of things.
I just really kind of shut down from the outside world. I just needed peace and quiet and that was the way I felt I could find it. So I had just been doing a lot of soul searching, especially with covid hitting. I just knew something was up, something felt off, and I started going a lot deeper.
But I wasn’t seeking God, I was just asking questions. The particular night I remember I was asking myself questions, I was frustrated because I just wanted to know the truth about why I’m here, why I’m in this world walking around existing, why is everybody here?
There has to be a reason we are collectively here. It’s not just to one day just die and that’s it. There has to be something I’m missing. I know I’m missing something.
I was very frustrated. I remember I was folding a blanket in my living room and I was just thinking these thoughts of, “Why am I here? Why is everybody here? What is the purpose? What is the reason?” At one point I said, “I just want to know the truth. I just want to know the truth.”
And all of a sudden my mind started going, “Well, what haven’t I explored?” And God popped into my mind. Then I immediately started going, “Well no, that can’t be it because there’s all these different religions, so that doesn’t make sense.”
Then I heard a voice in my subconscious mind, very authoritatively say, “I am not religion. We are not the same. Do not confuse us.” I just stopped mid folding my blanket. I was just going, “Did I just hear that?” but also something in my soul knew that I was asking for truth and I had just received it.
So it stopped me in my tracks and I sort of just stood there for a moment. I remember my whole body got really warm and tingly, and I was having all these revelations in my mind really quick, like rapid speed.
Where it was a conversation. It was like I was saying, “Are you real?” And it was like, I kept repeating that question in various forms, and I didn’t get an audible yes or no, but what I did was get an overwhelming sensation of love that I have never experienced ever before.
I didn’t even know it existed. Which is probably part of the reason I refused to accept or believe in God because I didn’t know that feeling could exist. Then it was like rapid fire question and answer, question and answer.
Where I started ping ponging in my mind, all these questions that I had had building up or these concerns about God or what I had heard. Just all these things basically just going off in my mind.
I remember distinctly at one point, it was sort of a, “If you’re real, then that means the devil has to be real. If you are real, then that means like two rocks didn’t collide in the sky and create us. You created us, and that means you created me.”
It was this internal dialogue with myself, but it wasn’t just with myself because I was getting a response in the form of an overwhelming Presence, and the sensations of heightened warmth and tingling all over my body would heighten when an answer would come in, it was really incredible.
So at one point I was like, “Wait a minute. Why am I here? We’re here for you. You have us here for a reason and a purpose. I don’t need to know the reason or the purpose. I just need to know it’s for you and that you’ve got me.” And then I started thinking, “Opposites. Every action has a reaction. Good and evil. You are good. There is evil. We’re here for good. Oh my gosh.”
Then I started to realize I was choosing a side at that point, because unknowingly I had been dabbling in the other side and that’s where my depression and anxiety that I had been plagued with my whole life and all these things really stemmed.
From the time I was a teen, I was on pills and believed I was so broken, I believed my brain was broken. So it became a moment of clarity for me, I’m not broken and I’m not an accident. I didn’t just appear here. I’m not good for nothing, and I have a purpose now.
And so that was the night of March 3rd, 2021. I met Jesus in my living room. He met me, and life has definitely never been the same. I really got new eyes to see the world. Everything is new from that moment on because I realized that God was real. It’s almost like a whole new world opened up in my mind.
Gina:
I am not a mistake, I am not an accident. I am not here for no reason. Like you love me and you have a purpose for me. That is so sweet and so tender. So then what, like you’re in your living room, you folded your blanket, what did you do with that? What’s next?
Courtney:
Oh, as best I can remember because I was so overwhelmed with just revelation really, just like I said, the whole new world opened up in my mind and I was so eager to explore and I was like, “Oh, but my son’s in the bath. I have to go get him out of the bath.”
I went back into mom mode, you know, I don’t even know. It was kind of a blur the rest of the night. I know at one point I put my son to bed and I know at that moment I started typing on my phone as many of the things I could remember.
The next day I was scrolling on Instagram and I saw this advertisement for a local beach church in San Clemente. I decided to go check it out. This was the first time I ever went to church, at a Beach Church in San Clemente. They happened to have an open mic. So I pulled out my phone of everything I wrote down, and I read it out loud at the beach church.
It’s just been such an incredible whirlwind. Especially the six months following were really an emotional rollercoaster because it was filled with these overwhelming waves of just realization that God has always been with me.
I would get these flashbacks of my life where I was in a state of despair or loneliness or whatever, and now I could see God almost hovering over me, being there with me. It really changed how I was perceiving some of those experiences that I realized were keeping me stuck in a dark place.
It was as if light was being shined on them. He was giving me an opportunity to relive them with the knowledge that He was there the whole time. And talk about healing, you know, like that was incredible.
So it was like a solid six months where I was an emotional rollercoaster, but in good ways. It was just really healing. Then I would get these bouts of just overwhelming love, that I couldn’t believe I was loved by God.
So it was a solid six months of just a lot of tears and healing. There was some shame on my part. But the interesting thing is almost immediately if I would start to feel shame for things I had done and be very apologetic to God, He told me, “You don’t have to look at this with shame, look at it more as I’m building you up for something.”
I don’t know what he needs me for exactly. I’m still learning. But basically at one point I remember he revealed to me, “Don’t carry this with shame. Carry it with a sense that eventually someday that experience is going to play a big part in what I need you for.”
Gina:
That’s redemption. That’s who He is. That’s His character. That’s what He does. It is a grand mystery because He doesn’t need us, but He chooses to need us.
God doesn’t need me to pray to move on someone’s behalf, and yet he is inviting us to partner with the intercession that’s already happening. He’s a Father who wants to bring his daughter to bring his son along.
You don’t need me to help you, but you want me with you. That’s the departure from religion versus relationship. That’s the departure from the knowledge of God to knowing Him.
What you were encountering was you had all these years of religious illiteracy, but now you’re meeting Jesus the person. The Father, The Son and The Spirit embodied.
If you need prayer, we would love for you to reach out to us on the connect page. Let us know how we can be praying for you.
Courtney mentioned Prayer Training, if you are interested in learning more check out our Prayer Training Page.
If you are looking for more ways to connect with God, check out our latest YouTube How to use Dwell Meditations
