Growing up, my family and I would go to church on Sundays, but it was mostly just something we did out of routine. I never really understood much or felt connected to God. So around the middle of high school, I started feeling really bad and unhappy, even though I had a great family, great friends, and overall a good life. I couldn’t understand why I felt that way. This began to affect how I treated people and how I saw myself. I became more negative, anxious, and angry, and I felt like something was missing in my life. One of my friends would always encourage me to get in a closer relationship with God, and go to a Bible study with her but I usually would just brush it off or be “too busy”.

I had seen the way that God had worked in her life, and when she suddenly passed away it opened my eyes to how everything can change so suddenly and that tomorrow is not promised. This got me thinking, if something happened to me today, would I want to be in the state that I’m in right now? This really encouraged me to want to start to get closer to God, but I didn't know how to, or what that looked like. I started to read my Bible more on my own time, but I still had a lot of questions and no one really to help me understand.