I was seven years old when Jesus became more than someone I had heard about.
I was just a little girl in a yellow dress and white sandals, my long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. But that day, I was carrying a heaviness no seven-year-old should have known.
I felt alone. I felt invisible. And somewhere inside my young mind, I had begun to believe that disappearing might be easier than continuing to hurt.
I didn’t have the words then to explain what was happening inside me. I only knew that I wanted the pain to stop.
There was one place I knew to go — the garden at my grandparents’ house just down the street.
That garden had always felt different to me. It was filled with fruits, vegetables, flowers, and life. When the rest of the world felt confusing, the garden felt safe. It was a place where I could be quiet. A place where somehow I felt closer to God.
But that particular day, I didn’t go there simply to pray.
I carried a small belt I had taken from my closet. In my seven-year-old mind, I had formed a plan to escape the pain I didn’t know how to carry.
I walked beneath the plum tree and closed my eyes.
There were no fancy prayers. There was no church service. There was no pastor standing beside me telling me what to say. There was only a hurting little girl pouring everything she had into God.
And then something changed.
It was as though time stopped. The garden was still around me, but suddenly everything seemed different — the light, the colors, even the atmosphere.
Then I felt a hand gently rest on my shoulder.
When I opened my eyes, I experienced something I have never forgotten: love. Not ordinary human love. It was a sense of safety and belonging so overwhelming that it felt like home.
I saw a man standing there. His eyes were bright blue. His smile was warm. His skin was olive-toned, and he wore ordinary clothing — a blue tank top, jean shorts, and a ball cap over short, curly hair.
He never introduced Himself. He didn’t have to. In my heart, I knew: Jesus. I believed I was standing in the presence of Jesus.
He didn’t condemn me. He didn’t scold the frightened little girl standing beneath that tree. Instead, He held out His hand and offered me a plum.
And then He spoke words that would become an anchor throughout my life. He told me that I was loved. That my life had meaning. That my journey would be difficult, but I would not walk it alone. He told me that when life became too heavy, I could speak to Him and He would guide me.
Then came the part of that encounter I have carried perhaps more than anything else.
He placed His hand over my heart and said, “This is where I live.” Then He touched my head and said, “Not here.” He placed His hand over my heart again. “I’m here.”
Even as a child, I understood something in that moment that has taken me a lifetime to fully live out. Faith wasn’t going to depend upon my ability to understand everything. God was teaching me to know Him from the heart.
Then a single leaf began drifting downward from the tree. I watched it twist and turn in the sunlight. When I looked back, He was gone.
And then I saw a rainbow.
To a seven-year-old girl standing beneath a plum tree, that rainbow became a reminder of God’s promise. The little girl who had walked into that garden wanting to escape walked out believing she had a reason to live.
I didn’t run home and tell everyone what had happened. I kept it close. Some experiences are so sacred that words seem too small for them. And somehow I knew that not everyone would understand.
But I understood one thing: I was no longer alone.
Life did not suddenly become easy after that day. In fact, many years later, I would understand why those words about a difficult journey mattered so much.
There would be heartbreak. There would be loss. There would be seasons when heaven seemed silent. There would be moments when I questioned what God was doing and wilderness seasons when I couldn’t see where He was leading me.
There would also be beautiful moments of His faithfulness — times when I would recognize that the same God who met a frightened little girl beneath a plum tree was still present.
My faith would be tested. I would stumble. I would ask questions. I would sometimes try to understand with my mind what God had been asking me to trust with my heart.
But I could never completely forget the garden.
Through the years, the lesson became clearer. Following Jesus isn’t a promise that we will understand every circumstance. It isn’t a promise that we won’t suffer. And faith isn’t about chasing supernatural experiences or looking for signs everywhere we turn.
Faith is knowing who we belong to when we cannot understand what is happening around us.
That encounter didn’t give me all the answers. It gave me an anchor: Jesus.
Looking back now, I can see that the garden wasn’t simply the place where something extraordinary happened to me. It was where despair met hope. Where a child who felt invisible believed she had been seen. Where a little girl who thought her story should end began to believe that perhaps God was only beginning to write it.
That lesson has followed me throughout my life.
There have been times when I couldn’t see God. But I learned that not seeing Him didn’t mean He wasn’t there. There have been times when I couldn’t hear Him. But silence didn’t mean abandonment.
And there have been wilderness seasons when I couldn’t understand why God had allowed me to walk a particular road.
But the wilderness didn’t erase what I had already learned about His character. God is faithful.
More than five decades have passed since that little girl walked into the garden. I can still picture the plum tree. I can still remember the sunlight. And I can still remember what it felt like to go there believing my life didn’t matter and leave believing that it did.
Today, when I think about that seven-year-old girl, I wish I could kneel beside her and tell her what she couldn’t possibly have known then:
There will be hard days. There will be prayers you don’t understand. There will be losses that change you. There will be seasons when you wonder where God has gone.
But keep walking. Keep praying. Keep seeking Jesus.
Because the God you met in the garden will still be God in the wilderness.
And sometimes what feels like the end of your story is actually the place where God begins opening a door.
Publication Note: This testimony is adapted from Chapter 6, “The Garden,” in The Door: A Journey Through Faith, Fire, and the Wilderness by Marsha Young.
Marsha Young is a Christian author and Texas native whose life has been shaped by faith, family, loss, spiritual encounters, and God’s restoration. She is the author of The Door: A Journey Through Faith, Fire, and the Wilderness, a testimony about trusting God through life’s unexplained and difficult seasons.
