Philippians 4:6 says this: “The Lord is at hand: do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

I’ve been really anxious lately, and I’ve neglected my blog and writing in general. I’m anxious about the future of my sorority. I’m anxious about those who hold negative opinions of me. I’m anxious about my future with my boyfriend (of six months on Friday, big milestone!!!). I’m anxious about my career. I’m anxious about what happens next.

You know when you’re about to go off to college for the first time and you’re anxious in that super excited, nervous kind of way? Yeah, I got to do that twice. And I think there’s a really big part of me trying to force that same kind of anxiety on myself for a routine third time, but for the first time in a long time, I have roots (love that word play).

I’ll be back at UCM in the fall, moving forward in the teaching program and in leading my sorority. My relationship with my boyfriend is founded on our faith, and I know I never write about him, but up until him a brokenhearted, hopeless romantic wrote this blog.

I’m not her anymore, and she’s the one who wanted to be a writer. I don’t know how to write about the things I’ve experienced in really giving my life to Christ, not just identifying myself as a Christian.

So much of my anxiety is who I am today looking for the problems and the worries I previously felt comfortable dealing with. I don’t know why I want to digress… I don’t think that’s really it. I think I’m just finally at that place where I can really be proud of myself, and I’m experiencing a truer kind of happiness because of it.

They call me Jesus Freak today (“they” is really my three best friends from high school), and I can’t help but smile at that. I’ve overcome so much. I think that’s who I’ve always wanted to be, but in the best way possible, not in the negative stereotype sense.

A little over a year ago I completed K-Love’s 30 Day Challenge, and after that, I tried really hard not to listen to K-Love. It made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why. I didn’t really like any other kind of music either. You know when you can’t find any music that fits your mood? Welcome to my life last year. I didn’t know where I fit.

But I thought about it constantly. It was still preset on my radio. But I couldn’t do it. It’s like I was waiting for something… I didn’t know what.

Looking back on the past year, I see a girl literally pulled from the depths of a dirty fraternity house and into the arms of Jesus Christ. I never thought I’d move on from my life that revolved around that fraternity house and everything inside of it, but here I am proudly listening to Christian music and living out my faith.

It’s always hard to start a story. How do you figure out the definitive place? To be completely honest, my story starts when I was born, but that seems too obvious (and too long).

Maybe this story began when my second freshman year roommate gave me the final push I needed to start Lessons Learned and Life Loved. Maybe it began when I continuously made the same awful mistake, dealing with the worst consequences I’ve ever experienced. Maybe it began my first weekend in Warrensburg when a sister and I brainstormed the idea to start a Bible study. Maybe it began when that same sister became the connection between my boyfriend and I.

My gut tells me that this story, one of so many I’ll collect in my lifetime, began when I was a desperate senior in high school dreaming all the wrong dreams as I emailed a prayer request to K-Love asking God to show my parents why I needed to go to Mizzou and that they would make it happen for me. I didn’t know how much K-Love would mean to me back then, it was just the only radio station my mom listened to.

God heard my prayer, and with the guidance of K-Love, He gave me everything I asked for and more in a way I never saw coming.

I think the end of that story is now… err, actually, it was a few months ago when I couldn’t figure out how to write. I tried to write from scripture. I tried to write to the most motivational sister I have at Mizzou (thanks Lyss, like always, this one is for you). I tried to write on popular, relatable topics. I tried to open old wounds and write in their blood some more.

I have at least six blog posts saved in a folder on my computer, all with beginnings that try too hard and no endings that fit.

This one’s it, though. This one’s going to get posted, and then I’ll get back to my week. It’s Greek Week, and as an English major, big final papers are daunting and begging for my attention. I have classes, events and meetings to attend. The best part of the week, though, is my Bible study, even if it is still a baby born from a great idea.

I’m taking the girls through a 3-week series on the book of Habakkuk, all because a friend shared Stephanie May Wilson’s book The Lipstick Gospel with me on my 20^th birthday. The Lipstick Gospel is something I could talk about in a blog post of it’s own, but instead, I’ll leave you with Stephanie’s favorite Bible verse, and suggest that you check out Stephanie’s blog yourself.

Habakkuk 1:5 says this: “Look at the nations and watch – and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”