Who am I?

I’m an average girl. There is nothing fabulous about me. I don’t want to share my story for personal glory. I’d like you to see what my God has done and how good He is. So, here it goes.

I was born in Virginia in 1991 and I moved to Maryland when I was a young-in. My mom was a teacher and my dad is a pastor. I affectionately tell people I have a “Preacher-Daddy.” So, I grew up in church and gave my heart to the Lord in third grade.

After 9th grade, I worked at a summer camp called, River Valley Ranch for the first time. It was such a great summer, I learned how important my walk with Christ is to an everyday life and how He needs to be ever-present in it.

In tenth grade, I continued to cheerlead as I had in ninth grade. When winter came around, I was voted cheerleading captain for my JV team with my two best friends. A few short weeks later I began to date a guy at school who was two years older than me and the star football player. Life was so ‘good’. I had it all, cheer captain, the ‘hot’ boyfriend, and on top of all that, I kept good grades. Everything was perfect until two months later, I found myself being sexually abused routinely, grades slipping, and worst of all, forgetting about my God. It took four months of abuse to tell my best friend what was happening, and her telling her mom, and her mom telling the school, and the school telling my father. The boy and I were both removed from school for the last two months of that year. He would call me on the phone, threatening to kill himself, saying it would be all my fault (he never did). I shut down. I shut my good family out, telling my father that I hated him. I shut God out, telling Him I hated Him too.

Before the abuse had started I had signed up to work at RVR again. That was the last place I wanted to go. A Christian camp. But my mom forced me out the door and sent me back to camp for four weeks. God did a number on my heart. It took a lot of tugging on my heart for me to surrender. But finally, while at camp, I turned everything over to God. I couldn’t do it on my own, so I gave it to the One who wanted to take control of it. I cleaned my act up and devoted all i had to Him. The ranch ended up asking me to stay for the final four weeks of camp. Who would have known?

The next school year, 11th grade, I started at a new school where I knew about 5 people. But it was a good change. I was walking with the Lord and had everything going well for me. I cheered again at this new school and was making tons of friends. Even started dating a really nice Christian boy. But on February 9th, 2008 one of my friends died in a head on collision. She and I weren’t super close, but it hit me so hard. And it still does to this day. She was beautiful. She loved the Lord and was friends with everyone she met. But through that, the Lord taught me that He’s still in control. He does what He does for a purpose, not just to hurt me, but to make me stronger and help others that go through the same thing.

My senior year of high school I was attending cosmetology school almost full time. It was really hard to focus on God there. It’s all about looking good and making other people look good. Like, for real, we got detention if our hair looked bad. I wish I was kidding. I became way too focused on what I looked like and who I hung out with. I excelled at hair though. It’s something I worked very hard at and put all of my time and effort into. But when I graduated from high school and cosmetology school, I was focused on the world. A few, short weeks later, I went back to good ol camp I began to strive after what God has for me, hard. And  that’s where I am now. Living a life of surrender, everyday. And, no, it’s not always easy. It’s going to be hard. But I know what God has for me is good. So that’s how I live, for Him.

I am unworthy, yet He loves me. So I will serve Him with all I have.

Won’t you join me?