I grew up in a small town, twenty minutes away called Solon, where I lived in the same house with my parents and my older brother for the first 18 years of my life.  I attended a Methodist Church in Solon with my family.  My attendance to that church was solely out of obedience to my parents for the first 10 years of my life.  Right before my eleventh birthday, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and I spent months recovering after the surgery.  For the first time in my life I felt out of control, that anything I did would not change what was happening to me.  In the process of getting better, I was forced to be patient, to wait for healing to occur, but I could not control if or when it would happen.  My first yearnings for God came from a desire for someone to control my life, to take care of me and protect me in times like this.  I wondered if the god that was preached about on Sunday mornings at my church was the one I could entrust my life to in these hard times which might possibly come again in my life. 
 So in sixth grade, after relearning how to walk, I started trying to regain control of my life.  I felt this control was capable of bringing me joy, a life full of love and acceptance.  I followed the model that had been instilled in me from any early age, that if I were to just work harder and try more I would succeed greatly, I would be praised by man, and I would receive this love I was searching for.  Though I had once thought of giving God control of my life, I was really only willing to allow Him to act as a sort of  overseer, someone I went to when I couldn’t handle things by myself, but really I thought I could handle pretty much anything on my own. I still wasn’t sure if I could completely trust God, after all, if He really loved me, why would He allow me to come so close to death with my recent brain tumor?  why all the hardship afterward? 
My efforts to regain control of my life, led me to feeling even more out of control.  I didn’t have any good friends and I didn’t think anyone loved me or thought I was important.  I became chronically depressed.   In the end of eighth grade one of my friends asked me to join the track team with her.  I started running because I thought it was something I could possibly excel at, something that would bring me praise and help fulfill that deep longing inside of me.  It turned out I was terrible at running, but my dad loved running and since I longed for his praise, acceptance and love most of all, I started striving.  I worked hard, trained constantly, I became a really good runner; I was skinny, beautiful, and praised by many.   My entire town, everyone I knew was praising me for my accomplishments in running, in school, even in the church where I seemed very dedicated and diligent in serving.  Life was great, this praise fed me and I learned once again that striving, hard work, dedication, and perfection were the means through which a person receives joy, love and affirmation.  I didn’t see anything wrong with working so hard to find love and joy; I thought it was supposed to be this way. 
 What people didn’t see in high school, what my parents didn’t even acknowledge because they were so proud of me, was that I had an eating disorder as a means to deal with my deep depression.  In the midst of it all, I still couldn’t find the love and acceptance I longed for from my father.  I was in a deep sea of pain and I felt that my closest friend, my dad only half heartedly tried to understand.  My interactions with him taught me that my feelings weren’t really that important; all that mattered was what I was able to do, able to excel at, anything I could do to win the praise of others.  Deep down, I constantly felt misunderstood.  It hurt, but I didn’t allow myself to feel or understand this pain of being misunderstood because I kept telling myself that I really didn’t want people to understand me, to understand the darkness in my life, because then I would appear out of control, I would be incapable of success and then I wouldn’t receive love and the praise of man.  
 After applying to several out of state colleges because I thought I wanted to get away from my parents, my dad advised me to go to the University of Iowa.  Financially it made the most sense and they have a good pre-med program.  I wanted to be a doctor because I knew it would please my father greatly.  I thought that if I became a doctor maybe then I could receive the love from my father that I spent my entire life searching for.  My dad advised me to stop running competitively in college, to start taking better care of my body.  Though I didn’t run on the cross country team at the U of Iowa, I didn’t really listen to my dad’s advice and continued running until my knee injuries became more severe and I was forced to slow down. 
 I moved into Reinow Hall in August of 2002 and started meeting friends immediately.  I filled my life with the busyness I was used to trying to numb the pain of no longer allowing running to rule my life.  I joined the inner mural triathlon team to help ease the pain of this loss.  Somehow God got my friends and I to 24-7 the first Thursday night of that school year.  That night in McBride Auditorium, I don’t remember what the message was about, but I remember hearing the complete gospel message, clearer than I had ever heard it before.  I started to realize that this love I had been searching for would never be found in the many places I had been searching. All this time, I had been longing for a love to fill me, surround me, encompass me, and comfort me fully.  God love could do this!  I couldn’t strive to receive that love.  Gods love was the only love that would ever completely fulfill me.  God longed to love me completely, not because of what I had done for Him, I would never measure up to Him, but because of who He is, because of His grace.  God’s love and grace is hard for me to accept sometimes, I know I don’t deserve it, and it confuses me because I don’t even have to strive for it, but I am learning that it is truly not about me. 
That night at 24-7 I decided to give God complete control of my life, not just as an overseer, one I ask for directions, but this time as the director of my life.  God had taught me in my last 18 years of life that I couldn’t do it on my own anymore.  I desperately was in need of God, his love.  I needed a savior.  I prayed a prayer that night and accepted Jesus into my life and received eternal life in heaven with God.  As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says I became a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come. 
Though the transformation from my old sinful self and this new life in the Lord is a process, Jesus has given me a peace, hope and comfort that I cannot imagine my life without.  As Paul says in Romans 8:28, I now know that in all things, God does work for the good of those who love him, All the hurt and pain in my life God is using for good, God is using it all to shape me into the person He intended me to be from the very beginning.   It is hard for me to give God control of my life because I believed for so long that having control is the only way to receive love and have joy. I am starting to realize the depth of God’s love for me and I long for that love to fulfill every one of my desires, those which I have spent the majority of my life searching for.  His love is so much greater than the love which comes from man.  If I am blessed to receive love from any person on this earth, I am now fully confident that this it is a gift from my Heavenly Father, an expression of His divine love for me. 
Throughout college, I became very involved with 24-7 (a college ministry with Parkview Evangelical Free Church in Iowa City, IA).  I was baptized in May of my junior year by the pastor of 24-7 (whom I had come to know well), this time is was my choice and a public expression of that choice.  I led bible studies with college women for two years, led a community service initiative with the ministry, and mentored younger women in college there for three years.  The summer after my freshmen year in college I worked as a ranger at a Boy Scout ranch in New Mexico where I did some bible teaching and the next summer I worked as Outdoor/Program staff in Colorado at a YMCA family resort while I attended a summer training program with the Navigators.  God’s hand has been very present in all aspects of my life.  I had Christian roommates and friends all throughout college and my junior year I changed my major in Health Promotion feeling called to pursue working in ministry somehow.  I planned to either go on staff with the church where I worked with college ministry or go to seminary somewhere. 
So here I am, following very clear direction from the Lord, I moved to Seattle in August immediately after finishing my undergraduate degree to attend Mars Hill Graduate School studying under Dr. Dan Allender.  I believe with all my heart (and based on much encouragement and wisdom spoken into my life) that I have been blessed with some incredible gifts of mercy and life experiences which though one intended for evil, God intended (and has always intended) for good.  God has not wasted my pain of the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse I have encountered in this world and will continue to use it for His glory if I allow Him too.  I feel the strong call to pursue learning how to more effectively utilize these gifts of mercy as well as studying His Word and knowing His Truth more graciously.   Philippians 3:7-11 are my life verses right now.