My Story

Hello friends!

If you are taking the time to read what I’ve written, there’s a chance you might want to know a little bit about me.

I was born and raised on a dairy farm in La Follette, TN.  Every member of my immediate family lived within 3 miles and it was absolutely idyllic. They are my favorite people to this very day. I was a good girl raised to know Jesus, but somewhere along the way I thought I knew better on how to run my life.  A few poor choices later, and I experienced grace in new depth.

 Hosea chapter 2:

For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
    who give me my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
⁶ Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
    and I will build a wall against her,
    so that she cannot find her paths.
⁷ She shall pursue her lovers
    but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
    but shall not find them.
Then she shall say,
    ‘I will go and return to my first husband,
    for it was better for me then than now.’
⁸ And she did not know
    that it was I who gave her
    the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on her silver and gold,
    which they used for Baal.

….1⁴ “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
    and bring her into the wilderness,
    and speak tenderly to her.

^….23     and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
    and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
    and [s]he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

I will never forget the grace I felt from that time in my life and those words on a page. I’ll never stop trying to fall more in love with Him.

After high school, I went to Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, TN. I made the best of friends and somehow squeaked out a Nursing degree. Before leaving Cookeville, a deep-dimpled boy proposed with a stunning ring.  We chose to make our home in Dayton, TN, where Joey grew up.  For 3 years, I worked in downtown Chattanooga as a pediatric oncology nurse.  It was certainly one of the hardest and most incredible thing I’ve ever gotten to do. In 2015, I graduated with my master’s degree in nursing, and God provided a job as a family nurse practitioner in a family practice office in Dayton. Serving our neighbors is more challenging and joy-filled than I ever could have imagined. I love my job.

In August of 2017, we welcomed a gorgeous baby girl into our lives. She has wrecked my heart in a thousand ways, and I can’t believe I get to be her mama. 

After teaching for 5 years in a public elementary school, Joey answered a call to ministry and became the full-time Children’s Pastor at New Union Baptist Church in Dayton. Which is how I came to add “pastor’s wife” to my list of titles, and one I am so very honored to wear. Joe and I consider this call on our family to be such a gift, and we are humbly learning each day what it means to shepherd God’s flock.

Since I was a little girl, I wrote books. “The Moster In My Closit” and “My Favorite Things” started with computer paper, crayons, and staples, and somehow I ended up here. Originally, I started this blog in 2011 as a way to communicate to family and friends back home while I was serving as a medical missionary for 10 weeks in the Philippines. I titled it “Willing Hands” taken from Proverbs 31, as I prepared to serve there. About a year after that trip, I realized I had more to say and began writing here once again. This little collection of posts has seen me through some of the hardest and sweetest moments of my life – from living in a foreign country, to grappling with things like terminal illness in children, and now trying to figure out motherhood. I write about where I am in life, and how God is working out my faith – still hoping to have willing hands in all He asks of me.

Anais Nin said “we write to taste life twice…” and I can’t help but agree. My mind thinks in stories/words/and phrases. I’m grateful that you would read what I have to say.