Sandy’s Story

I was raised in a Christian family. My mom and dad were both involved in ministry, and from a very young age, I thought I knew everything there was to know about God. I knew the Bible stories. I knew that Jesus came and died for us on the cross. I knew that His love was greater than anything we could imagine; that He was good, kind, and full of mercy.

But knowing about Jesus is very different from truly knowing Him.

Growing up, I struggled deeply with sin. I couldn’t understand why it was so hard to change or how the Holy Spirit was meant to help me live differently. I heard people talk about freedom in Christ, but I didn’t experience it myself. Even so, one thing I never doubted was His love. I never questioned whether Jesus loved me - I always knew He did. What I lacked wasn’t belief; it was relationship.

Christianity felt familiar and true to me, especially knowing that my dad had come from a completely different faith background and later became a Christian because he never felt at peace where he was before. That always stayed with me. I knew there was something profoundly different about Christianity. Still, my faith remained more inherited than personal.

As the years passed, life changed. After years of ministry and church life, my parents divorced. My dad stopped going to church and began exploring other spiritual paths, trying to reinterpret the Bible through a different lens. None of it made sense to us. And while I still believed Jesus was the truth, I didn’t really know Him. I just carried that belief quietly while moving on with life.

I went to university, started working, and eventually met the man who would become my husband. We fell in love - genuinely and deeply. Before moving to Dubai, we decided to get married. We came from different faith backgrounds, but our marriage itself was rooted in love, and there was no doubt about that.

But there was one fear that never left me.

I kept wondering: How will my children grow up?

How will they know the Jesus I grew up hearing about?

How will they know that He loves them, that He is God, that grace and love are at the centre of truth?

I knew that when two people come from different faiths, children are often raised in one direction, usually following the father and that thought weighed heavily on my heart. It troubled me deeply. Because of that fear, my husband and I began arguing often: about truth, about faith, about Jesus. I tried to explain the love I saw in Christianity, but nothing changed. We went in circles, and my worry only grew.

One day, after a particularly big argument, I made a decision. I told myself I would study his faith more deeply - not out of curiosity, but because I wanted to prove that what I believed was true. I found a book written by a Christian author who compared different belief systems directly with the Bible. The book itself was clearly rooted in the Christian faith, and as I read, I was led again and again to Scripture. Through those comparisons, I began seeing Jesus more clearly: His heart, His love, and the difference between knowing truth intellectually and truly knowing Him.

Then I reached a section about the end times, about judgment and salvation and something inside me broke. I realised that Jesus had not yet come, for in His great love for the world, He patiently waits for all to turn to Him in repentance.

I went somewhere I could be alone, dropped to my knees, and began sobbing. In that moment, the Holy Spirit came upon me in a way I had never experienced before. I felt the overwhelming, undeniable love of God. I lifted my hands and told Jesus that I wanted to live my entire life for Him, that I knew He was good and that I wanted Him fully.

That moment happened here, in Dubai.

This is where I truly met Jesus.

From that moment on, Jesus became my closest friend. I started to read His Word, to fast, and to pray. I wanted to know Him deeply and to walk closely with Him. I began spending time in the Bible daily, seeking Him with my whole heart, learning to hear His voice, and trusting Him with every part of my life.

As my relationship with Jesus deepened, I began feeling the distance between my husband and I more clearly. I worried about our future and wondered how God could possibly bridge the gap between us.

So I turned to the Bible and asked God what He said about marriage. I was surprised by what I found; that if a wife wants to win her husband, she does so not by words, but by her actions. As I searched for encouragement, I found testimonies of women whose husbands came to faith simply through prayer, love, and trust in God.

This was incredibly hard for me. I wanted to convince him. I dove into apologetics, debates, and research, trying to reason my way through faith—until God gently but firmly told me to stop. He showed me that all of this was only growing bitterness in my heart and asked me to focus on His Word alone.

It was during this season that God led me to City Lights Church in a very profound way. He used a very special friend—someone who came alongside me and added to my faith. She stood with me in belief, reminding me that even though my husband was not yet a believer, that he would be one day.

Through that connection, I became part of a community that truly felt like family. I was surrounded by people who genuinely loved me, who prayed for me, and who stood with me in faith. I had friends who prayed consistently; not only for me, but for my husband as well. People who loved him even before meeting him, who believed for his salvation when I felt weak or tired.

The support, those prayers, and that community strengthened me in ways I cannot fully describe.

Then life became very hard.

Our real estate business began to fall apart. Everything we had worked for started slipping away. And in the middle of that pain, I prayed one of the most honest prayers of my life. I told God that even if we lost everything, even if the business completely failed - if my husband could just see the truth, it would all be worth it.

And that is exactly when God moved.

At the lowest point of our lives, the Lord revealed Himself to my husband, not through arguments or debates, but through a dream. He encountered Jesus in a profound and undeniable way.

When my husband eventually came to church, he was overwhelmed, not by teaching, but by love. He was met by people who didn’t know him, yet loved him deeply. People who had been praying for him long before he ever walked through the doors.

Today, my husband is a follower of Jesus. But this was only part of God’s story—before him, He brought my brother to faith, and ever since, He has been drawing heart after heart back to Himself. 

The Lord answers.

This testimony reminds me that God is faithful, that He listens, and that He works through prayer, surrender, and community. He invites us to lay everything at His feet: our fears, our plans, our control-and when we do, He comes through in ways far greater than we could ever imagine. 

He is good.

He is loving.

And He is absolutely worth trusting with everything.