Hey There, It's Me!

My Testimony

Honestly, I don’t remember the exact moment I became a Christian, and I truly can’t remember a time when I didn’t love the Lord Jesus.

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I was born into a Christian home, where I was loved and cared for. My grandparents took me in and raised me in church every Sunday and taught me the scripture and to read the Word. At age 8, I accepted Christ as my savior and was baptized. Whole heartedly, I believed that God was my Creator, Jesus came to earth and died to be my Savior, the Holy Spirit was here to walk with me through life, and the Bible was my guide.

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However, even though I was born into a Christian family and grew up in church, it wasn’t until I was in middle school that I fully began to appreciate just how astonishing and unbelievable it was to truly have a personal relationship with the Lord.

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At age 12, as I was beginning middle school, my grandmother felt called to homeschool me. Homeschooling was one of the best things that could have happened to me as a Christian, since all the curriculum I followed, was Biblically based.

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Throughout middle and high school, I started volunteering with our church to share the Word to those around us. Multiple times a year, we would go to Atlanta and serve dinner to the homeless population there. As a young girl, I typically stayed in between the tables and talked to people over the food we were serving, but as I watched the adults in the group go out to talk with the people and share the gospel with them, I felt a tug at my heart that God wanted me to do that with my life.

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 In the summers, I helped lead different age groups during VBS at my uncle’s church in Alabama and our church in McDonough, then for two years I lead the VBS worship music for preschool at our church. While school was in session, I would help lead different areas in the Good News Club our church started. The school we were in was a large group of unchurched families, and I enjoyed watching the kids discover new things about the gospel and wanting to know more about who Jesus was.

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As I watched those around me talk about Jesus and the Bible, I found myself wanting to know more about the Word and growing closer to God in ways that I could never have imagined. Consequently, I discovered that I enjoyed researching the History behind the events happening in the Bible and learning what God meant in His Word, and how it related to me.

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At the start of my sophomore year of high school, God called my family to move from our neighborhood to live in the country to allow us to pursue my passion of horses and owning some of my own. That September, I had gone to my great grandmother’s church on “National Adoption Sunday” and attended a conference where a lady from The Forgotten Initiative in St. Clair County, AL was informing and encouraging people to consider adopting or fostering an orphaned child. I felt God pulling at my heart to do something for these kids, but I was dumb enough to ask God, “What can I do? I’m only 15.”

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After the conference, I talked with the lady in charge and found out that there were around 80 kids in foster care in the area, and many of them had never had and wouldn’t have a Christmas. I heard God in that moment say, “you can do something about that.” I told my family that I wanted to do something about this and give these children a Christmas gift, and after being discouraged by members of my family, God asked me to trust Him, and He showed me what He could do.

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While we were in the process of moving, I watched God move in amazing ways as people donated toys, books, clothing, personal items, and enough fabric to hand make all the stockings. By December, God graced me with the best 16th birthday present I could have ever received, I was able to see Him use my family to pack 78 stockings for boys and girls in ages ranging from 4 months old to 20 years old, and that pulling at my heart to help other only grew stronger.

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Once we were fully moved in, the Lord led us to a local church where I was able to join the Student Worship & Arts Team, also known as Students With A Testimony. This group encouraged students to become rooted in God's Word and were held accountable to know the Bible through memorizing scriptures and to set aside quiet times to spend time with the Lord. We learned how to share the love of Christ and to reach the lost through music, drama, and serving where we were called at our church and other locations. It also prepared students for a future in ministry, by taking us on mission trips all over Georgia including Helen to help with local needs and the Appalachian Trail to feed and encourage hikers, all while sharing the Word and love of God. Eventually, after I graduated high school, I became a leader and started guiding and helping the younger students how to get a closer relationship with God.

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Outside of the church, I began to work at a local barn that specialized in helping people through hippotherapy, a form of therapy that deals with physical, occupational and speech problems that develop in adults and children. This form of therapy uses horse riding to help develop motor and sensory skills by using the movement of horses, since a horse as the closest walking movement to a human over any other animal. Working with these individuals, teaching them to ride, allowed me to watch them become stronger and begin to change through the interactions with us and the horses, brought so much joy to my life. I wanted to do this for the rest of my life and started working hard to obtain the necessary requirements and certifications to do hippotherapy, or therapeutic riding, full time.

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In the summer of 2018, right after I graduated high school, I was approached by my boss with the opportunity to work as a camp counselor for the summer. Being around kids all day doing what I loved sounded amazing to me and I happily agreed, and even though it was super fun, I discovered just how much I enjoyed sharing Jesus and His love with the children. This drove me to continue working hard to fully become a therapeutic riding instructor, and a year later I finished my courses and became fully certified.

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The people who I now worked with and was around at the barn were not believers, and I soon found myself acting differently around them than I did at home, I was acting like them. My relationship with God began to slip and I wasn’t as strong in my faith as I used to be, however I didn’t do anything to fix it. I continued teaching lessons and even though I enjoyed what I was doing, I soon realized something wasn’t right and something was missing in my work. While teaching horse lessons and hanging out at the barn, I wasn’t sharing the love of God and no longer had the ability to share the Gospel with the people I came in contact with.

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At the beginning of 2020, I started to realize just how far I had slipped with my faith, and how much I desired for that intimate relationship with Him again. I decided then that I needed to change, and I asked God for strength as I began memorizing scriptures and studying the Bible again. As I grew closer to Him again, I changed the way I acted around my coworkers, and started showing what I believed and sharing God with them. In March, when covid shut everything down, the barn I worked at also shut down and some of my coworkers panicked, while others rebelled and called it a hoax. Though I found myself fully trusting God again and not being overly concerned, and even though we couldn’t hang out anymore, I continued to share the gospel with them anyway I could.

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That same time, I felt God pushing me to start an online Bible study group on Instagram, where I saw so many girls becoming depressed and isolated. That’s when I started the group YDOC, or Young Daughters Of Christ, for girls of all ages to encourage one another and lift each other up while learning about Jesus. By the grace of God when summer came around, there were so many girls in the group that we had to expand one group to four. We met once a week on zoom for a virtual Bible study and encouraged each other daily.

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When the world began to open again and lessons were able to start up again, I began to realize that my coworkers didn’t exactly like my renewed faith in God and change of attitude. Regardless of the openness and love I showed my coworker, small issues began to arise, and they began to isolate me and do things without me. As the weeks continued, I no longer enjoyed teaching lessons and I started dreading the days I had to go to work. In December, I made the decision to leave the barn and cut ties with all my coworkers.

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Unfortunately, after I left, I didn’t feel like God was leading me towards a specific career path and I didn’t know what God wanted me to do in life, but I still relied on Him fully to provide what I needed and to show me where He wanted me to go. At church, I was asked to take over the newsletter for our senior adults, and with my hobby of graphic design I was able to update it to where everyone could enjoy it. At the same time, I started to volunteer in the nursery every other Sunday to rock babies, where I was able to make strong connections with the families in the church. I also joined some Bible studies at church, and I used that time to further my knowledge of Him and immerse myself in His word.

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During the summer of 2021, I felt God asking me to expand the online Bible study group and start an in-person group for high school and college age girls to be able to fellowship together and grow together as sisters in Christ. When school started, I officially started meeting with 4 girls every Sunday afternoon as we followed a wonderful Bible study by Priscilla Shirer called Defined. After a few weeks of Bible study, I started to feel a pull on my heart to go into ministry, and that pull was so strong that I knew God was telling me that this was the path He had chosen for me.

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After a lot of prayer, I felt called to take classes through New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to peruse a major in Christian Ministry and a minor in Biblical Studies. At this point, I don’t know exactly where God will ask me to go after college, but I until then, I will continue to grow and learn even more about my savior, and I pray with the knowledge I will gain from NOBTS, I can fully follow God's calling for my life no matter where that may be.