Many people believe in many things throughout their lives, for me I believe that

God has a purpose and plan for my life. Growing up I always knew I would be a D1
athlete and win championships at the highest level of college athletics there is, but I
grew up thinking it would be baseball and that I wouldn’t ever get a degree. Needless to
say God opened up a new door in my life my senior year right around the same time he
was closing my baseball door, that door was cheering. Since then I signed to a division
1 and won a national championship last year but also have had it all taken away and
have had to transfer to NOC because of the way I was living my life and not trusting
God’s plan.
God's plan is something that is hard to trust sometimes and hard to believe in at
times because it goes against mine at times but I have to just keep believing in his. The
last two years I spent at Tarleton State University and I thought that would be the school
I graduate and get my degree from. The problem with that is I wasn’t going to graduate
there, I had bad grades, focused on the wrong things, and got in with bad people that
caused me to forget the student side of being a student athlete. With that all happening
God said it was time for a change in my life and I just had to believe him and trust him.
God put it in my heart to want to transfer schools and cheer programs but the
only problem was I didn’t have the grades to transfer to another program or big school.
He blessed me with a goal though. Around that same time my friends convinced me to
come to a clinic up here at OSU. I had a decent clinic but I did not think anything would
come from it. I ended up talking with the head coach at Oklahoma State University and
she told me to come out here to NOC and fix my grades this upcoming fall semester.
With that she said she wanted me to practice with the team and she might have a spot
out here for me in the spring. I was ecstatic but then another problem came up later in
my last semester at Tarleton. I found out I had to have shoulder surgery over the
summer and didn’t know if I would be able to cheer again this year at first. So I prayed
and prayed about my surgery and what to do about school. God just kept telling me to
go to NOC and keep trusting his plan so I did and talked to the head coach and she still
said to come on. After hearing that I moved out here to Stillwater Oklahoma and started
a new life out here.
This has been a huge transition and I knew I couldn’t let it be for nothing so I got
here and was focused on the things I could control, like school, my attitude, and my
effort and have left everything else in God’s hands. Now I am a little over halfway done
with my first semester out here and am having my best academic semester so far in
college. I am also healthier than I have been in a long time, better at stunting than ever,
and just overall in a better place mentally than I have been in years. I also have been
able to surround myself with better people that truly care about my academic success
more than my athletic success. This whole process of coming out here has been a
challenge and has been completely out of my comfort zone but through trusting God's
plan I am continuously seeing the better changes in my life and in my persona overall.
Now today I can sit here and know that the way I used to live was not healthy for me at
all, I know in order to be a successful athlete I have to be successful in school first or it
is all for nothing, and I know graduating and being the first in my family to graduate from
college is all possible
I still struggle and still am not where I want to be academically or athletically but I
now have been able to see college is something that I can succeed in and am excited to
succeed in. With that said though I know none of it would be possible if I tried to trust
my plan for my life instead of God’s. God has a plan for my life and he has really shown
it to me over these last 8 months and I am so glad I listened and will continue to listen to
him for his desires for my life instead of my own desires. I look forward to seeing what
else he has in store for me and how he uses the trials I have been through in order to
build my life into what he wants it to be.