Introduction

My name is Krista. I'm twenty-six years old and I work as a preschool teacher assistant, while I aspire to be a young adult author of contemporary stories.

I accepted Christ as my savior and Lord when I was nine at a summer camp when I learned I'd go to hell if I didn't. As a kid, that scared me more than not seeing the next episode of the "Big Comfy Couch" or finishing the collection of books on my nightstand. I was always really good at knowing the answers in Sunday school and being able to tell my teacher that I loved Jesus. But I struggled with the reality of loving a God who I couldn't see.

In high school, I struggled to find my own faith in summer missions trips and joining a leadership group in my youth group. I felt stronger in my faith, but I still didn't know what to do or how to listen. I didn't know how to trust God with everything. After experiencing a very dark period of my life, I came to rely more on God. I even though of becoming a long-term missionary after listening to a man speak about his journey of faith in Papua New Guinea, but I don't think God called me to that.

In college, I found myself surrounded by people who didn't care. They didn't care about God and having a healthy fear of God. They did what they wanted and they seemed so free when I was being to feel bogged down by God and doing "good works" instead of having a relationship with God. But I kept to my morals and waited patiently. I hoped that God would provide for me during these years and give me a husband, like so many other young woman received. But nope. Nothing. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Child Services and a minor in English, in December of 2011. I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and with the thought process of a child, I wondered what I'd wrong that I wasn't married like so many of my friends.

I'm still in the next period of my life. It's been a few years since college and I currently work two jobs. I've struggled to provide for myself on minimum wage jobs since our society makes it hard for those who are single and only have one good income. I've fallen away from the church because I don't feel like I have a place there anymore. There are children's ministries, women's ministries (though most of those women are married and have kids or are grandmothers), men's ministries, college ministries... and... me. I don't really have a place in the church at twenty-six and unmarried. Right now, I feel lost. I don't know how to find my place again or how to find Christ again when I'm the one who is looking away. This is my journey.