I grew up in a very loving, very close family close to Morganfield, Kentucky. I still live in Kentucky and travel across the bridge every day to USI. I can't remember a time that I didn't know I wanted to be a teacher. What a blessing to know without a doubt what my career path would be ! The only choice to make was what to teach. I chose math simply because I liked it and thought it would be fun to teach. After spending six years at Western Kentucky University, my job here at USI pretty much "fell in my lap" and I've been here since. For the most part, I grew up in a very small church surrounded by extended family members. I say for the most part because while my parents, siblings, and I believed in Jesus and the Bible, we really didn't regularly attend church or do much with what we believed. Thanks to my wonderful grandparents, we were never too long away from church. In fact at thirteen, I did make a personal commitment to serve God after attending a revival with my grandparents. However, the pattern of sporadically attending church, but not really giving much of myself to God or to my church, continued well into my early adulthood. It's strange that it was while I was involved in some typical, but still unhealthy, activities in college that I really became convicted that I needed a deeper relationship with God and that there was something big missing from my life. I managed to ignore this feeling for a very long time. It wasn't until about five years ago after a very painful experience that I made the decision to completely turn my life over to God. This happened due to a wonderful friend sitting me down and quite forcefully telling me that God loved me, even though I was mad at God and blamed God for what had happened. Funny how we expect God to bless us, even when we don't deserve it, huh? Well to sum my story up, the past few years have been sometimes sad, chaotic, painful, and simply crazy. However, they have been the most peaceful and joyful of my life. I still fail myself and my savior most days. But I know that I'm closer to God today than I was yesterday and that he's blessed me with a wonderful family, loyal friends, a great job, and a loving kind sweet person I hope to spend my life with. I am completely grateful for all I've been given and it's my greatest hope that more people can find the love, peace, and joy that's available to them also.