Who I Am #1

I was born on October 5, 1981 in Colorado Springs, CO to Mike and Bonnie. My parents met in high school and got married right after graduating from college. If a few words could be used to describe my growing up they would definitely be stability and consistency. I attended the same small, Christian school from Kindergarten through 12^th grade, my dad works for the same company and my parents still live in the same house they bought several years before I was born.

When I was 4 ½ years old my sister, Laura, was born. I still remember my parents waking me up in the middle of the night and taking me over to my grandparents house so they could go to the hospital. I was so excited I didn’t sleep all night! And I still remember running through the halls of the hospital the next day yelling, “I have a sister, I have a sister!” :)

I started kindergarten before I turned 5 so I was always the youngest (and for many, many years, the smallest) in my class. I did well in school – worked hard but never really struggled with anything too much and took great pride in being one of the “smart kids”.

In second grade I met Kim who became my best friend for many years to come. We were both obsessed with horses, proud that we were not too girly and lived close to each other (not a given when you go to a private school across town). Our families became good friends as well and I have many memories of family camping trips, sleep-overs, school plays, backyard gymnastics routines and school sports together.

I did a bunch of random sports growing up – dance, gymnastics, baseball, basketball, took piano lessons and played flute in the school band. I was never great, never bad at any of these just sort of average. In seventh grade I joined the cross-country team (mostly because Kim did and that’s how those things go at that age!) and once again was just sort of average.

(yep, that's me in the stylin' glasses and purple shorts - 1st CC meet in 7th grade)

As I got ready to go to high school I debated long and hard about doing cross-country again. I had two so-so years under my belt, I enjoyed the team aspect but didn’t really like running that much and in high school you ran 3.1 mile races – twice the middle school distance!! I finally decided to give it a try at least for a year and I’m so glad I did!

I was actually much better at the longer distance and started to see some success in sports. I ran on the varsity cross-country and track teams all four years of high school and loved that new piece of my “identity”. My freshman year our girl’s cross-country team took 4^th in the state – Kim and I as freshman along with 2 sophomore girls – we thought we were big stuff. My sophomore year I made it in the local paper as the “All-Area Runner of the Year”.

The summer after my sophomore year of high school Kim’s family moved to Michigan. I was heart-broken! We had been inseparable since 2^nd grade and now I was going to have to finish high school without her. It was a hard summer. As I mentioned nothing major in my life had changed up to this point – I realize it’s super unusual to make it to 15 years old and be able to say that, but it was true for me! Turns out it was one of the best things that could have happened for my growth. I had to make “new” friends (I say “new” because I was still at the same school so I’d known most of the people for years already) on my own as an individual rather than as part of a two-some. I started to learn more about who I was and thinking about who I wanted to be.

It was during my junior and senior years of high school that I really started to make my relationship with God my own. I’d grown up in a Christian family and at a Christian school and I had “prayed the prayer” when I was 4 years old but these were the years I really started to put meat to it. We had an incredible high school class that was always looking for and planning activities to live out that relationship. We had bible studies several nights a night, Prayse rallies (prayer and worship times), evangelism outings (dropping the “G-bomb”), accountability groups and lots of teleological discussions. I ate it up! I had never felt God so personally and consistently and really have not experienced Him in the same way since. It was an important foundation for me to build as I was headed toward more earth-shattering change (graduating and heading off to college).

Right before my senior year of high school God starting revealing how prideful I was, particularly with my grades and with my running abilities. I remember right before cross-country started that year I prayed that God would teach me humility and help me break down some of my pride – man, don’t pray prayers like that unless you mean it because God is happy to answer them! That season was my worst of all four years of high school. Meet after meet for no explainable reason I would have issues in my races – cramps, tiredness, etc – and never do anything compared to what I could run previously. My season ended at regional’s that year and for the first time I didn’t qualify for state. It was hard, but by that point I realized that it was God working on my pride and I was learning how my identity was not tied to my athletic abilities (or lack thereof).

During my senior year I was also working through what college to attend. I knew I wanted to major in engineering because I was good in math and science and it was impressive for a girl to be an engineer – more of the pride in my “smart kid” status. I desperately wanted to stay in Colorado because I didn’t want to be too far from home and I LOVE Colorado! In the end the decision came down to three schools: 1) Colorado State – good engineering program, cheaper state school, 2.5 hours from home and I knew a lot of people from high school going there, 2) Colorado School of Mines – more academically impressive school, I got good scholarships since they were trying to entice girls to come, an hour from home, and two boys I had “history” with were going there, and 3) Baylor University – not even sure how this one ended up on the list, my mom went to school here and my whole life I swore that was the one place I would not go, but they had an impressive engineering program especially for a Christian school and even though it was huge there was some comfort in that continued Christian bubble. There were many discussions, much prayer, pro/con lists galore, school visits….

Well, you can guess where God had planned to send me… it was off to Waco, Texas to attend Baylor – totally out of my comfort zone to a world where I didn’t know a soul.