I like to say that I found God during my senior year of high school…

I grew up attending church irregularly and always knew that God was real, but I didn’t have a personal relationship with Him. I began attending Youth Group during my senior year because my best friend and my ex-boyfriend were on the worship team and invited me.

That was a challenging time in my life—not only was I trying to break free from a toxic ‘situationship’ with my ex, but I was also in the middle of auditioning for colleges to get into a musical theatre program. I had been letting people, whether it was a boy or a group of professors, decide my worth, and I was exhausted trying to control my life. The Youth Pastor encouraged us to let God carry the weight of our burdens and give up control to His greater plan. I had been struggling on my own for so long, so I decided to give it a try.

Slowly, through God’s grace and mercy, I began to learn what an intimate relationship with Him looked like. I started reading the Word and craving time with God.

The first semester of my freshman year of college was spent at the University of Northern Colorado, where I was pursuing a degree in Musical Theatre. Living in Colorado was one of the hardest seasons of my life. I was so alone—not only because my family and friends were 13 hours away, but because I had no community at school. I had just found my relationship with God the year before and wasn’t willing to jeopardize my beliefs to gain approval from others. I also hated what I was learning; theatre was no longer my outlet—it caused me more pain than joy.

In Colorado, all I had was God. I have journals upon journals from that time filled with prayers begging God to save me from that place. Because God is loving and faithful, He did. I moved back home for the second semester to attend a local community college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but God led me down His path. I reached out to my dream musical theatre program—Texas Christian University, which had denied me the year before—to see if there was any way I could audition for their program again, and they said yes! Throughout the audition process, God made it very clear that I was supposed to go to TCU. Thank goodness God is the author of my life, because now, as a senior at TCU, I could not be happier!

My testimony is defined by how gracious and good God is to me, even though I do not deserve it.