Destination … Trust — A Woman’s Journey from Buddhism to Baptism

On the morning of St. Mark’s Day in 1997, Jill Danner heard a voice that spoke only three words to her, “Go to church.” She had spent the night before begging God for answers after a fight with her boyfriend triggered painful memories from the past. Later that morning, Jill joined the crowds of people gathered for mass in Italy’s St. Mark’s Square and heard the voice speak again. “You still have sorrow in your soul.”

As a former U.S. Navy Intelligence Photographer, Jill visited many countries around the globe. But this particular trip to Italy was much different than any other. “The Holy Spirit spoke to me that day in Venice,” she recalls. The truth of those words helped Jill realize she had never properly grieved her mother’s death. At the age of three, she lost her mother and gained a resentful stepmother four years later. “For the longest time I was very defensive,” she says. Jill soon came to realize she had developed trust issues and adopted Buddhism as a means of breaking down the emotional walls she’d built as a little girl.

Even as a self-proclaimed Buddhist, Jill never forgot about her encounter with the Holy Spirit in Italy. She felt God calling her to find a church home and jumped at the opportunity to attend Saddleback when her fiancé’s business partner suggested they check it out. She still recalls a message in the first sermon she heard to “keep on trusting.”

Jill was attracted to the church because it made her feel good, but she never expected to become a Christian. “It felt like we had just left a pep rally,” she recalls of her first time at Saddleback. She and her fiancé attended Saddleback off and on for two years, until his business partner began noticing signs of alcoholism and codependency in their relationship. God opened Jill’s eyes to it too, and she ended her engagement and began attending church regularly. “I’ve had many clarifying shifts in my thinking since I began attending Saddleback Church,” she says.

Although she believed in and prayed to God, Jill still struggled to understand if Jesus was just another prophet or was truly the Son of God. Despite her doubts, she joined a small group and continued learning more about Christ. Connecting with other Christians provided Jill with the reassurance she needed to accept Jesus as the Son of God and her life’s Savior. Though she still had questions in her head, her heart was completely captivated by his love.

“I didn’t just want to hang out with the Christians anymore. I wanted to be a Christian,” Jill says. This past March, she made the bold decision to commit her life to Christ by getting baptized. After her baptism, Jill was overcome with joy the minute she walked into the bathroom to change into dry clothes. “The song ‘Oceans’ came on and it almost dropped me to my knees,” she says. It was the lyric, “You’ve never failed and you won’t start now,” that brought her to tears.

Since being baptized, Jill has allowed Jesus to tear down her emotional walls and is learning how to trust people for the very first time. As one of the only Christians in her family, she hopes God will use her faith to bring her family to know and trust Jesus, too. In exchange for surrendering, God has granted Jill with the peace that transcends all understanding. She is using her love for Saddleback and passion for media production as a volunteer on the Tech Arts team at The Grove campus in Anaheim. For Jill, this is just the beginning of a beautiful journey.

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