My Faith Story

Hey there!
I thought that it would be nice to truly introduce myself to you on this little blog by sharing my faith story. I was born and lived most of my childhood in Jacksonville, Florida. My dad's job transferred our family to Atlanta, Georgia as I was entering middle school. I'm delightfully close to my mom and dad and am so thankful for their relationships. I have a younger sister named Bekah, who is not only my sister, but my very best friend. We were blessed to be raised in a Christian home, where the gospel was clearly displayed before us. The older I become, the more thankful I am for my parents, whose Godly example helped shape me into the woman I am today.  When I was a little girl, I was small, shorter than anyone else I knew, timid, absolutely hated to be alone and was terrified of strangers. I loved being a student at school but would cry my eyes out leaving my mother's car nearly every morning until 2nd grade. My sweet mother would hide notes in my coat pockets and my lunch box, so that throughout the day I would be reminded to be courageous and I also knew that my mother would be praying for me. My family has a running joke of how I was too scared to go ask for a ketchup packet at a fast food restaurant and I made my younger sister go get it for me.

One afternoon, when I was in third grade, I came home from school and told my mom that I wanted Jesus in my life. I remember praying with her in my room on my bed and I remember not feeling so afraid anymore.

Flashing forward, I don't really think that it was until high school that the Lord starting showing me to trust that when I step out, He has already gone before me, prepared the way and knows the outcome. Throughout high school my heart grew stronger, bolder and as I learned to trust and obey, He never failed me. College skyrocketed me into a whole new level and my many small groups, college ministry and sweet friendships helped me understand how true accountability and doing life together matters. Now I no longer felt scared by the world and my surroundings, instead I wanted to conquer them for Him. 

I remember attending 7:22 at Northpoint Church and one message from Louie Giglio has stuck with me ever since. He brought out a piece of a picket fence and set it in front of him. He began to talk about how we've all be fooled into believing how our lives should look. That the enemy had so deeply planted simple lies that seem so inconsequential, that when looked at individually, you would never suspect that he was actually up to no good. For example, who ever told you when you were little that this is what they expected of you: graduate high school, graduate college, find a job, find your soul mate, get married, have kids, retire and grow old. None of these things are innately bad. I'm an educator, I want my students to succeed as they grow older. But what if following this path led to you playing it safe and missing out on your role in His story. Maybe someone did tell you that this was how life was supposed to look, but for me I don't remember someone spelling this out and yet it was what was expected of me. Going against the grain and doing something different was just plain weird. He spoke of how maybe this was how the world wanted your life to look ...comfortable...easy...familiar...and with little risk involved. The American Dream...complete with a white picket fence. It shook me to the core. Who had come up with this? Why should my life look like everyone else's in the world? That was his point exactly...what if God had something greater, more exciting, more thrilling, a huge adventure planned for you? What if you couldn't predict what the next five years held? What if it is actually "immeasurable more than all we could ask or imagine"?

I had incredible opportunities to go to many countries on mission trips and I saw how the Lord provided the funds, the words to speak wisdom and He reassured me that He would be there for me no matter what. Throughout college, I started going against the grain...just to test the waters a bit. It seemed like everyone had their life planned out and I was left with Him holding the pen and my life's pages were blank...little did I know, just waiting to be filled. My dear friends were all getting married, I wasn't dating anyone at the time. I didn't want to teach after I graduated (and there weren't any jobs being offered) so I moved across the country for a nannying job. I quickly realized that He didn't want me there for long so I moved back home and He had several other adventures waiting for me.

I had always loved taking pictures so I decided to start a photography business. I knew that I wanted to keep helping people and I had the opportunity to work for a few non-profits and in the midst of it all, I met the man of my dreams ( I plan on writing a post just about our story soon! Read our love story here).

Now I would have never thought in a million years that the Lord had someone for me who felt the exact same way about living their life as I felt He was calling me to. Our relationship was so different than anything that I had ever had before and when He called me to teach English in China (just three months after we had been officially dating) I didn't know what He was up to. The Lord was asking me to trust Him with my relationship with Drew, my photography business, my incredible job at the non-profit and moving across the globe alone. As usual, His ways are not our ways and my time living in China helped me realize (not only that I was madly in love with Drew) but also that we would one day be living overseas together.

I returned to America six months later, got engaged, got married added two puppies to our little family and the Lord asked us to trust him again. Move to China. We told our families, the Lord provided the support, we sold our car, quit our jobs and moved to China.

We have just returned from a year of living in a rural village with eighteen precious girls from Tibet. To say it was an adventure is a ginormous understatement. My plan is to share more as I process what all the Lord showed us during our time there. 

 So what about doing some dreaming with the Lord yourself? It may start out as something very small and grow into the adventure of a lifetime. I would have never think of myself as timid or shy like the little girl I once was.

Last Summer in Dongguan, China