MY STORY

AGE 15 - KICKED OUT OF YOUTH GROUP

I grew up in a household that went to a different church every week because there was always something “wrong” with the lead pastor. I also grew up in a household that only knew legalism and rules. So this idea of Jesus… was not my kind of thing. I thought Christians were mean and I thought they were crazy. At thirteen, I moved to Gainesville, Georgia and started attending a well known church in the area. I got into a relationship with a boy older than me and it went downhill from there. I started drinking, doing drugs, and lost respect for myself in multiple areas. Church people seemed to only care about me and what was going on in my life so they had something to talk about and honestly, I hated the church. Not the church I was attending specifically, but church as a whole. The perfectionism and judgement and hypocrisy rubbed me the wrong way. I ended up getting kicked out of the youth group because of how dishonoring I was, and it got to the point where I despised the church so much my parents would pay me to go on Sunday mornings. And in return, I would use that money to buy things to entertain my bad habits.

AGE 16 — HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT

As if getting kicked out of youth group and being an addict wasn’t enough, I was arrested for shoplifting at fifteen and my parents had enough. They moved me down to Sarasota, Florida and I started going to school there. My relationship ended, I started doing harder drugs and I got involved with the wrong people. Over Spring Break, I found myself in the hospital one morning after a traumatic night where I was sexually assaulted by three guys who went to my new school. A few weeks after, my GPA was under a 1.0. I was a sixteen year old, clinically depressed girl who was already was battling self-harm and who struggled deeply with suicidal thoughts. If this was how life was and this is how humans treated other humans, this was a life I didn’t want to be a part of, which led to me dropping out in the 10th grade. Months passed… and I ended up at a church service that I wasn’t paid to go to (lol). This girl came up to me and was the kindest person I had ever met. Long story short, she connected me with a leadership/ministry college that was starting the very next week. The staff at this school went against their guidelines, and took me in at sixteen. One month in, I had encounter with this Jesus guy I always heard about. This Jesus guy who I spent my whole life making fun of, ended up changing my whole life for the better.

AGE 18 — back to georgia

I graduated two years from that ministry college at eighteen, and at the end of those two years — the church that I was kicked out of at fifteen was starting up a ministry college for their first year. I felt the Lord pulling my heart to go and I thought I was going to lose my mind. “I am NOT moving back to the place where I got kicked out?!” I remember arguing with God on this big time. But, I knew that I knew this was my next step. So, I did it. No one supported me going, but I knew what God was asking of me. I left my family and my friends and moved my life back up to Gainesville, Georgia all by myself. And I remember walking back up to that church on the first day of classes in awe of what God was wanting to do. My life fell apart the first year and I was confused because no one told me that following the call of God on your life WASN’T always easy. In two years, I moved nine times, worked three jobs, got engaged and broke off an engagement, didn’t have a dime to spare, had to Uber everywhere because my car broke down and was a full-time student. It was one of those things where I had to do what I had to do to keep me where I knew I was suppose to be. And it was HARD.

AGE 20 — HIRED ON AT SAME CHURCH I GOT KICKED OUT OF

But God is faithful. And what he starts, he always finishes. Halfway through my second year at my college in Georgia — I was hired full-time to be one of the Directors of the college. I started blogging and writing towards my first book. Little by little, I was being asked to be on podcasts, speak at different services, be on blogs and I was mind blown. That depressed, broken sixteen year old girl was now guest speaking on podcasts with the same people she use to listen to when she first committed her life to Christ. I served in this role for three years and truly, it was the greatest honor of my life to use what the enemy meant for harm, and to use it for the benefit of these students. That regardless of how far off you may have been, that God delights in chasing you down. In the most gracious kind of way. And using the really messy pieces, and blowing people’s minds with it.