I grew up in small town just south of Lexington, Kentucky known worldwide for its Christian academic institutions – Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary. My dad taught in the art department for almost 40 years at the university, so I grew up loving art, artists, art students, art teachers, art museums, art mediums, art studios, art books, art galleries, art classrooms, all things visual art! And I grew up in a home of strong faith and sound relationships. I tested the validity of the doctrine and the reality of God while I was a teenager, and through questioning what I had until then taken for granted, I discovered that the depth and truth of Christianity was not only real but personal and freeing; it was not only a decision to believe but a worldview, foundation, relief, inspiration, practice, outlook, disposition, trajectory, journey, connection, motivation, insight, belonging, relationship. In undergrad I studied Art Education, then taught art for nine years in South Carolina and Kentucky, and traveled extensively during those years. I chaperoned teams of students in educational and relief work trips abroad and I began taking intercultural studies courses while I was teaching art, knowing intuitively somehow these interests would intersect more explicitly. I did relief work in Asia working with kids in refugee camps, where we created art to work though traumas of war and natural disaster. I loved teaching art and wanted more overseas lived experience and more investigation, so I headed toward further grad school in the UK. After finishing a master’s degree at the seminary in intercultural studies, I moved to Scotland to study Visual Culture both at the University of Aberdeen (second master’s) and at the University of Stirling (PhD, practice-based in art). My PhD dissertation research focused on how visual art can be a place where something inside us shifts perspective, where we can see with compassion that moves us to action. I co-created several large scale commissioned installations of stained glass and wrote about visual culture. Although my research was practice-based, I had not yet lived in the refining crucible that would adjust my own life to see people with more of the compassion and grace that God has for us. After three years of study in the UK, on a holiday visit home in Kentucky to work on a stained glass project, I met someone who routed the direction of my hopes and ambitions into a destructive marriage and unexpected divorce. In the trauma of those experiences and massive losses, my faith grew and I moved toward healing. I found freedom and new life, and although some lessons came in ways I would not have invited, I am grateful, for I know the God who saves, frees, rescues, strengthens, enlivens, regenerates, reminds, provides, forgives, and helps forgive. In that time of inner transition, I also shifted careers to what I most wanted to do: teach at a university and be closer to home. I would love to share how my story has been full of joy, but it has included some darkness out of which the light of joy was intensified. When I hear students today wrestle with their experience and perceptions of religions and the appearance of faiths, I recall a class I was a TA for at Stirling called Mis/Representations of Religions. Often Christianity mis/represents inaccurately too, but if we were to trust a loving God fully, we might find that faith is accessible, beautiful, simple, mysterious, nuanced, vital, affirming, forming, freeing and free. It is also for you. I live in Middle Tennessee with my really amazing son, two dogs, and two cats and found my faith community in a local Anglican church.