Latest Post – January 15th, 2026
Why Adventism?
I anticipate my daughter will ask why we practice Adventism or why she should follow in our steps. If she is just as critical as her parents, she is going to scrutinize all of our beliefs and I want to be prepared to answer them. It is only fair to her that her parents are as transparent as possible. In the spirit of transparency, since having my daughter, I have felt the furthest from God in a long time. Fatigue consumed me and my anxieties as a first time mother pooled all my resources away from biblical study and prayer. A couple months since her birth, I feel like my head is above the water, and I want to rekindle my relationship with my Lord. Putting specific denomination aside, I became a follower of Christ because of the relationship I was able to have with Him. The following is a personal account of my testimony.
In the beginning…
Firstly, my husband was born into the faith. His parents converted to Adventism before he was born and he recommitted his faith via baptism when he was nine years old. His family, till this day, are strong leaders in their local church. Six years later, he met me in high school, a girl who hated organized religion. I had my reasons.
My previous exposure to religion was minimal. My family was culturally Catholic in that the only times we went to church was for baptism and funerals. I know my family believes in a god, but they do not know God. My mother, as a single parent, attempted to join a church. I remember being bored in the Sunday school classes. I also remember her fury on the day we left because they scolded her for my brother’s hyper behavior. My mother accused them of being hypocritical and I never looked back. Many years later, my mother dated a Muslim man, who was…well evil. He physically, psychologically, and sexually abused members of my family for six years. During this reign of terror, he utilized Islam to justify his malice. It was under his pressure, I learned three things about God:
1. God may have created us, but He abandoned us to our evils.
2. According to God, women are to be used. At best, women are second class to men.
3. God is a strict authoritarian.
Though this man was gone for good, I still retained my opinion on God. I felt that He watched from up high, capable of anything and everything, and did nothing but watch. He judged and condemned us for all our wrong-doings, and yet, He often let the evil do their wrong. He made no sense to me. Life made little sense to me.
I shut myself off and allowed a narrow range of emotions, the prominent one being anger. I explored methods of satisfaction and distractions with the world’s pleasures, but when the novelty of being deep, or, edgy, or quirky wore off, it was onto the next outlet. With each new phase, I believed I was perfecting my ultimate version, which was furthest from the truth, from Him. Spiritually, I was like a leaky roof of a house, and I handled it by putting a bucket under the leak. When one bucket filled, I found another. Unknowingly, I began to resemble my father, matching his anger and pride. His reflection in my mirror scared me, because he was the result of someone who ran out of buckets a long time ago. In the pursuit of trying to be different, I was charging full speed into my own nightmare. I didn’t know it back then, but my father was the result of a man yearning for love from the wrong places. That was what was wrong with me then too: I had not yet accepted the love of Christ. I thought I could handle the leak on my own, without help, but it was just me and my pride in this house of filled buckets.
…but you’re Mexican
I feel sorry for my husband when I reflect upon the early years of our relationship. The girl he was falling for, was firmly speaking against the character of his God. He was so conflicted, that he omitted his entire faith from our relationship for a year. During a meal at McDonald’s I plainly asked why he never ordered anything other than fries. He explained that his parents are vegetarian, and that he has been vegetarian his whole life too. I then (foolishly) proceeded to say, “But you’re Mexican? What do you eat if not meat?” This was one of my many blunt curiosities that while at the time was naive, was the start of an inquisition.
I eventually confronted him about his refusal to see me on Saturdays, to which he finally professed his faith. He believed that telling me that he was Adventist would lead me to end the relationship. I remember the tears and the fear in his voice, but he chose God that day. I also remember how our relationship finally made sense. My husband was unlike the men I knew; he was gentle, kind, and intelligent. Most importantly, he had this err of peace I could not quite place, though in that moment, he was telling me it was because of God. In that moment, he became the representative of an entire denomination that I never heard of before and a believer of a god that I wrote off. At that young age, I was determined to prove that I had already removed the wool from my eyes and have seen God for who he was. I was so sure I had it right. Yet, at the same time, through his testimony, there seemed to be something more to Adventism.
I continued with my lessons on Adventism, such as the sanctimony of the Sabbath day, the structure of the church, Ellen White, the last remnant, and such. Somewhere in these domains was surely an inconsistency or evidence that a God was an egotistical man-child. I arrived at Bible studies and Sabbath school, anticipating my “gotcha” moment, and it never came. Instead, I was the one captivated by the Bible. It described the love for a God that I never knew. At these studies I learned three things about the real God:
1. God created us in His image, in His ability to love. He is always with us, in the deepest valleys and the tallest mountains. He knows me and is always with me.
2. Women, like men, are also created in His image. We are equal to men and loved as much. We have a great purpose in the mission. I was given talents by Him to glorify Him.
3. God is love. He has always loved us, so much so that He sacrificed Himself to save us from sin and from ourselves, and I was worth it.
The Adventist youth in these groups were people my age, and they openly discussed and discerned the Word in ways I didn’t know people did. I respected that their faith was built on study and what they knew to be true, not what they were told (or forced) to believe. They knew of a God that they yearned to be with. They wanted to have a relationship with Him and some part of me did too. It was a hot summer night and I was at a low point in my life and everything seemed to be wrong. I opened my window and climbed onto the roof, crying quietly while mosquitoes snacked on my legs. My thoughts fractured into a dozen unanswered questions that I was not ready to answer, and one led to another. Why was I abused? Why did my dad leave? Why can’t I control my anger? Why am I so alone? Why am I the way that I am? Why do I keep ignoring the signs? Why can’t I change?
That is when it clicked. I couldn’t change because I did not have the power to on my own. There weren’t enough buckets in the world to keep up with the leak. I needed a permanent seal from the ultimate fixer. Now that I was actually learning about God, I wanted to share in the peace that he offered. On one church excursion, my husband bought me a small stone that read “Do not worry, because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7”. At this point, the words were mostly worn off, but I kept them close because I so desperately wanted to be relieved from emotional turmoil. On that roof, I wiped my tears and decided to have a relationship with God. I did not want to be in a club, or have some identifier. I wanted to know Him and rejoice in His love. I wanted to carry His yolk like a family crest. I am proud that I do today.
Since my baptism in 2018, I have been blessed by my God, but also have been carried by Him through rough times. In times of job loss, marital stress, and life suddenly lifting, there has yet to be a time where God did not provide. In my moments and fear, I remember that because He cares for me, He will protect and provide for me and just like that, my fears melt away.
So why Adventism?
When my daughter asks, the narrative I recounted above will be part of my answer. Honest, authentic testimony are a big part of sharing the good news. It is never enough to tell our children what we think they want to hear or what we think is a tidy answer. My testimony to my daughter, no matter how it makes me look, I hope emulates not only the power of God, but my love for my Lord. However, there is still so much more to my answer because there is so much more to faith than heartfelt testimony. My faith is not solely built on emotion, but also in facts and logic. In fact, this component is so important to my faith, it needs its own post. Please read the following post for factual information about why Adventism is as close as it gets.