My Story
I’ve finally decided to post my “story,” and I never realized how hard it would be to get it all together. It’s also a little scary for me because my past is something I’ve always kind of tried to keep to myself. However, as cliché as it may sound, I think I will find this therapeutic, considering I have never taken the time to actually think through and write down my story before now.
When I was 6 years old, my parents divorced, so a broken home has been a constant throughout my life. My mom went through a series of boyfriends and my life was unstable, to say the least. The only real constant in my life was going to church. When I was 8 years old, I was tired of the inconsistency in my life, and wanted this great Father that everyone had talked about, so I prayed and invited Jesus to be my Daddy since I didn’t really have an earthly one.
When my mom remarried to my step dad, we moved about 45 minutes away, where my life got even crazier. My life was filled with instability, witnessing abuse, and praying to God for a new life. Through everything, I held on to my faith all through elementary and middle school. I remember my faith being so strong when I was in middle school. I remember all the vows I made and everything I said I would never become. Jesus filled my life and through everything, I had this constant joy, but soon enough, my home situation and just the pressures of being a teenager got the best of me. That just happened to be when I was entering my 9th grade year. I was so frustrated with my circumstances and my friends seemed to be offering a better, quicker solution, even though I knew it was temporary. I became everything that I swore I would never be.
Just around this time that I had given up and started to stray from God, my parents starting developing into awesome Christian people. My home life was still not great, but it started to get better. I no longer had the excuse that my family was messed up, but I continued to do the same old things I had been doing. With my parents’ new faith, they started making me go to church every Sunday morning just like when I was younger. I was there every Sunday, but I was still complacent in my new life of drinking, smoking, and just about anything else you could think of. I reasoned my way out of the constant guilt I felt, and I found that the more I pushed God away, the easier it became to do so. I was still making good grades, on the varsity cheerleading squad, and my parents and other adults considered me an angel. Of course, I reasoned that if my life looked okay to everyone else, then I had it made. In my eyes, I was just a Christian who was having fun.
Without getting into too much detail, the next four years of my life were a blur of sex, drinking, and partying beyond control. (Wow..that’s the first time I’ve ever really admitted that.) In the back of my mind, Jesus was always there, running after me, begging me to come back to Him and enjoy the awesome life that He could offer. I remember crying so much during those years, wondering how I had gotten so far into the mess that my life had become and thinking that now that I’m this far down, there’s no way I can come back up. Satan really had it made in my life. I was so scared to change, scared of losing friends, of being considered stuck-up because I wouldn’t hang out with my old friends. The whole time I just remember God constantly calling on me and telling me He could make it better, and to be honest, that scared me. It scared me into discontinuing my activity in the youth group and my contact with Christian people my age. I thought that if I could just run away from God, He would quit talking to me and making me feel guilty for having fun.
God is so amazing though, because no matter how far I ran away from Him, He was chasing me, wanting me to be with Him so bad. At the end of my high school career, I started to realize that all the things I thought mattered so much really had no relevance in my life. I knew that I needed to get away from everything that had to do with Paducah, Kentucky and make a new start if I ever expected to get out of the circle of sin into which I had been throwing myself for 4 years. Not knowing much about Ole Miss at the time, I decided that Ole Miss would be the perfect place for me to make my new start...kind of funny now that I know what I know about Ole Miss. I got here to Ole Miss and I just wanted to make friends so bad, so my resort was the life I had known for the years before. For the first semester, I was back into the habit of drinking, etc., but this time God’s voice was not only talking to me, He was shouting out to me, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS WHEN I’VE BEEN HERE ALL ALONG!?!?!”
It wasn’t like I got to a certain low point or lost all my friends or had this amazing preacher help me realize that I needed to change. I remember I woke up in my dorm room one morning after a long night of partying and the first words to come to my mind were, “This is enough.” I had had enough. I was ready to commit my life to God. There was nothing anyone could say or do to change that. I didn’t care if I had no friends, I didn’t care if I had to explain why I wasn’t doing the same things to my friends at Ole Miss or in Paducah when I went home. I didn’t care if I never had another friend again. It was just between me and God, and that was the first time that I had ever felt a peace about discontinuing my behavior. As many times as I had tried before, this time I just gave it to God for Him to carry for me. I knew that He would give me everything I needed, no matter what came along. It’s so hard to put into words the peace that was given to me that beautiful day.
Since then, God has blessed my life in so many ways. He has given me so many Christian friends and my life is so exciting and amazing. Building my relationship with Him has been anything but boring. It amazes me that He can take the horrible decisions I have made in my past to help me spread His word. I can relate to so many people who are going through the same things that I have gone through, and the fact that I still face those same temptations also helps me relate to people who are struggling with the same sins.
Coming into college, I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer. My mom(and everyone else who had been around me for very long) had always told me that I could argue with a brick wall, and the salary was nothing to complain about, so I decided to go for it. I had my whole life figured out, I’m talking dates and times and everything. Then, after giving my life to God, one step at a time, He directed me to His plan for my life. I was looking for a job last summer and was having such a hard time. I had a great resume, but no one would hire me. I was to the point of tears when I talked to my children’s minister and told him that if he knew of any jobs, to let me know. Then, he told me that just recently he had been told that for the first time, he could have a paid summer intern and asked me if I would like the job. How awesome is God! I worked with him all summer and basically oversaw everything that had to do with children’s ministry and I even got to be involved with youth ministry as well. In fact, it was through the youth that God showed me my purpose.
I went to Missionfuge camp with the youth and I got to work with inner city children at the DreamCenter in Mobile, Alabama. These kids were wild. I was the head of my group and was supposed to have everything figured out, but I felt like such a failure. Everything that I had planned went wrong and I spent 90% of my time just chasing the kids trying to get them to sit down. That’s when an older lady came up to me and said, “I have been watching you all day and I have to leave, but I just wanted to tell you that God must be calling you to do this with your life.” Talk about God using other Christians to reveal things....That’s when He put it on my heart that children were my call to the ministry. Now, I’m doing everything I can to work toward that goal. Things have not been easy, and I have failed many times, but God has control now and I have a peace in knowing that I’m not responsible for worrying about what will happen tomorrow.
When I was 6 years old, my parents divorced, so a broken home has been a constant throughout my life. My mom went through a series of boyfriends and my life was unstable, to say the least. The only real constant in my life was going to church. When I was 8 years old, I was tired of the inconsistency in my life, and wanted this great Father that everyone had talked about, so I prayed and invited Jesus to be my Daddy since I didn’t really have an earthly one.
When my mom remarried to my step dad, we moved about 45 minutes away, where my life got even crazier. My life was filled with instability, witnessing abuse, and praying to God for a new life. Through everything, I held on to my faith all through elementary and middle school. I remember my faith being so strong when I was in middle school. I remember all the vows I made and everything I said I would never become. Jesus filled my life and through everything, I had this constant joy, but soon enough, my home situation and just the pressures of being a teenager got the best of me. That just happened to be when I was entering my 9th grade year. I was so frustrated with my circumstances and my friends seemed to be offering a better, quicker solution, even though I knew it was temporary. I became everything that I swore I would never be.
Just around this time that I had given up and started to stray from God, my parents starting developing into awesome Christian people. My home life was still not great, but it started to get better. I no longer had the excuse that my family was messed up, but I continued to do the same old things I had been doing. With my parents’ new faith, they started making me go to church every Sunday morning just like when I was younger. I was there every Sunday, but I was still complacent in my new life of drinking, smoking, and just about anything else you could think of. I reasoned my way out of the constant guilt I felt, and I found that the more I pushed God away, the easier it became to do so. I was still making good grades, on the varsity cheerleading squad, and my parents and other adults considered me an angel. Of course, I reasoned that if my life looked okay to everyone else, then I had it made. In my eyes, I was just a Christian who was having fun.
Without getting into too much detail, the next four years of my life were a blur of sex, drinking, and partying beyond control. (Wow..that’s the first time I’ve ever really admitted that.) In the back of my mind, Jesus was always there, running after me, begging me to come back to Him and enjoy the awesome life that He could offer. I remember crying so much during those years, wondering how I had gotten so far into the mess that my life had become and thinking that now that I’m this far down, there’s no way I can come back up. Satan really had it made in my life. I was so scared to change, scared of losing friends, of being considered stuck-up because I wouldn’t hang out with my old friends. The whole time I just remember God constantly calling on me and telling me He could make it better, and to be honest, that scared me. It scared me into discontinuing my activity in the youth group and my contact with Christian people my age. I thought that if I could just run away from God, He would quit talking to me and making me feel guilty for having fun.
God is so amazing though, because no matter how far I ran away from Him, He was chasing me, wanting me to be with Him so bad. At the end of my high school career, I started to realize that all the things I thought mattered so much really had no relevance in my life. I knew that I needed to get away from everything that had to do with Paducah, Kentucky and make a new start if I ever expected to get out of the circle of sin into which I had been throwing myself for 4 years. Not knowing much about Ole Miss at the time, I decided that Ole Miss would be the perfect place for me to make my new start...kind of funny now that I know what I know about Ole Miss. I got here to Ole Miss and I just wanted to make friends so bad, so my resort was the life I had known for the years before. For the first semester, I was back into the habit of drinking, etc., but this time God’s voice was not only talking to me, He was shouting out to me, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS WHEN I’VE BEEN HERE ALL ALONG!?!?!”
It wasn’t like I got to a certain low point or lost all my friends or had this amazing preacher help me realize that I needed to change. I remember I woke up in my dorm room one morning after a long night of partying and the first words to come to my mind were, “This is enough.” I had had enough. I was ready to commit my life to God. There was nothing anyone could say or do to change that. I didn’t care if I had no friends, I didn’t care if I had to explain why I wasn’t doing the same things to my friends at Ole Miss or in Paducah when I went home. I didn’t care if I never had another friend again. It was just between me and God, and that was the first time that I had ever felt a peace about discontinuing my behavior. As many times as I had tried before, this time I just gave it to God for Him to carry for me. I knew that He would give me everything I needed, no matter what came along. It’s so hard to put into words the peace that was given to me that beautiful day.
Since then, God has blessed my life in so many ways. He has given me so many Christian friends and my life is so exciting and amazing. Building my relationship with Him has been anything but boring. It amazes me that He can take the horrible decisions I have made in my past to help me spread His word. I can relate to so many people who are going through the same things that I have gone through, and the fact that I still face those same temptations also helps me relate to people who are struggling with the same sins.
Coming into college, I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer. My mom(and everyone else who had been around me for very long) had always told me that I could argue with a brick wall, and the salary was nothing to complain about, so I decided to go for it. I had my whole life figured out, I’m talking dates and times and everything. Then, after giving my life to God, one step at a time, He directed me to His plan for my life. I was looking for a job last summer and was having such a hard time. I had a great resume, but no one would hire me. I was to the point of tears when I talked to my children’s minister and told him that if he knew of any jobs, to let me know. Then, he told me that just recently he had been told that for the first time, he could have a paid summer intern and asked me if I would like the job. How awesome is God! I worked with him all summer and basically oversaw everything that had to do with children’s ministry and I even got to be involved with youth ministry as well. In fact, it was through the youth that God showed me my purpose.
I went to Missionfuge camp with the youth and I got to work with inner city children at the DreamCenter in Mobile, Alabama. These kids were wild. I was the head of my group and was supposed to have everything figured out, but I felt like such a failure. Everything that I had planned went wrong and I spent 90% of my time just chasing the kids trying to get them to sit down. That’s when an older lady came up to me and said, “I have been watching you all day and I have to leave, but I just wanted to tell you that God must be calling you to do this with your life.” Talk about God using other Christians to reveal things....That’s when He put it on my heart that children were my call to the ministry. Now, I’m doing everything I can to work toward that goal. Things have not been easy, and I have failed many times, but God has control now and I have a peace in knowing that I’m not responsible for worrying about what will happen tomorrow.