Statement of Faith

My story has been a journey through many trials, as I know many of us undergo. But the foundation, of which I grew up, was solid and firmly rooted in Christ Jesus. My parents had my sister and I attend a private Christian school for all of elementary school. They saw the importance of having us learn the way of the Christian faith while we were young and hoped that we would grow up to be followers of Christ.

            I believe in the period as a small child I didn’t completely understand everything about what “accepting Christ to your heart” meant. But I knew that I wanted it. I had a passion to accept Christ and repeatedly prayed the prayer wanting to make sure it really stuck and that he was really in my heart.

            After elementary school, my family moved my sister and I into public schools, which proved to be a challenge and a whole different learning experience for us. But at the same period, we also changed churches and got heavily involved with a local Presbyterian church that had a phenomenal youth group. I relished the experience and jumped right in with both feet anxious to learn more about what this Christian business was really about. I made new friends and had a whole new community. It was in this setting I feel like I started to learn more about what it mean to be a follower of Christ. The process of learning continued but I now started to realize I had a community I could bring my questions to and people that could hold me accountable.

            The journey continued into high school where things got a little bit more complicated with the distraction of men and relationships with them. I spent a lot of time seeing my identity in these relationships and my identity in Christ as two separate things. I felt that I could be a Christian but still date and be with whomever I wanted as long as I abstained from sex, drugs and alcohol. The faith started to become a set of rules and I felt legalist in that as long as I was following the guidelines everything else would be okay.

            Everything changed when I entered college, within the first few days on campus at the University of South Florida I met a women named Jenny, who was on staff at the time with Navigators campus ministry. She invested in me and helping me grow in my relationship with Christ. She became my mentor quickly and really taught me more about what this ‘walk’ was all about. She showed me how to study scripture and how the time I spent in the word didn’t have to be just on Sunday mornings with others but could be  -- anytime! This amazed me. I found a new excitement in the scripture reading stories I read as a child with new interest. I started to learn what it meant to have a personal relationship with Christ and that it could be a daily thing. Not just a set of rules to follow.

            Since then, I have continued to see Christ present in all that I am doing. There are times that are hard and I know that the only way I could get through all the hurt and the pain is because Christ the king has redeemed me and calls me by name. He has pursued my heart as a young child and fought tirelessly to show me how he delights in me. I still struggle at times with trying to recognize that my identity is in him and that I am not here to please man. But God is faithful and he will not give me more then I can handle and if I am challenged he will provide people and the necessary steps for me to face the day. I know this because he’s proved in the past and in my story through saving my through many hardships that could have occurred in my life and protecting my heart. He has proven to be faithful to the end.