All my life, I played softball. It’s all I had ever known besides fulfilling my Sunday mass obligation and going to confession a few times a year. But when I went to play Division 1 softball more than 2,000 miles away from home, I didn’t know how to cope. It was eat, sleep, breath softball. It made me mold who I truly was into how well I performed, into how impressive I could be for a crowd and earn my spot. If I played well, I was elite and deserving, therefore worthy. With this mentality, one bad game my freshman year led me to believing God thought I wasn’t trying hard enough to be who I was supposed to be, who I was meant to be. I felt like I had failed Him, but I mostly felt like I failed myself because my purpose was to be good at softball and I couldn’t do that.

Experiences like these throughout my college years made me realize that everything in the world is temporary. We all have an infinite God-shaped hole in our hearts that we try to fill with so many finite things. And mine was my sport. The only thing that has always stayed the same and will never change is God. He has never abandoned us even when it felt like we were nothing in His eyes. God met me in the darkest recesses of my mind and held me as a beloved daughter, not a softball player.

I came to the faith when I realized that nothing will ever satisfy the heart except for Jesus. Playing college softball has made me see my identity not as something dependent on my performance but as resting in His embrace. And that’s a daily surrender of every outcome to come. Jesus suffered and died so that we could live unshackled from the sins of despair and shame, not just survive in them. No amount of self-glory in the sport I played could ever amount to the love that Jesus has for me, for every single one of us. 

Through FOCUS and with my fiancé, Clayton, I want to help college students see that they are more than their performance and the only way we can be “perfect” is by being perfected through Christ. When I answered the call to serve with FOCUS, I made the decision to rely on financial and spiritual support of mission partners to help me through this mission. Through your help, I will be able to best serve God’s beloved children on campus. If you are interested in partnering with me, please let me know the best way I can reach you so we can schedule an appointment to talk. It would be an honor to be partners in this mission together.