Paige Wiley

The One Who Provides :: By Paige Wiley

When I was a freshman, I thought something was wrong with me. I had always heard that college was the "best four years of your life," but what I was experiencing quite the opposite. I was overwhelmed, homesick, lost and lonely. I hated college. Making friends was hard. Figuring life out on my own was terrifying. I lost friends and relationships that I had been clinging on to, and I was essentially grieving the loss of my old, familiar life. So basically, I was really broken.

Thankfully, God did not leave me in that state of brokenness. I began to pray for community, and let me tell you - God provided. It started when I attended Christian Challenge for the first time. I saw that Fall Conference was just around the corner, so by some will of God, I signed up. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know how I was getting there, but I trusted God to provide for me. I ended up having a fantastic time. I actually met my future roommate and future mentor during that weekend, among many other new friends. Later that year, I joined a LIFE group. And although I was hesitant at first, God provided me with very specific answers to prayers: joy, acceptance, love, and community. I was finally feeling like I was a part of something.

But more importantly, God changed my outlook on Jesus. Christianity is not about guilt or worry or doing everything exactly right (quite the opposite, actually). It's about GOOD NEWS! It's about grace, love, and a relationship with Christ - and it's an invitation to all. That was my missing puzzle piece. If I had kept to my safe, comfortable, high-school self, I would never have grown or meet these new truths. God was loving enough to give me a season of difficulty so that I may come closer to the throne.

My life is by no means perfect now. I still get stressed out, I still feel lonely, and I still even have my doubts. But if there's one thing I do know, it's that God is good. And by God's grace, we are good enough to be called children of God. Glory be to our good, good Father!

Cassidy LaMair

Being a prisoner sometimes means not fully knowing what is holding us captive. We drag our experiences, our lies, our beliefs behind us believing this weight is normal and almost comfortable. If I have figured out how to survive in this cage I call life, then why should I believe there is anything else? Why should I hope there is more?

God has a way of setting us free from chains. Of taking us from a place of survival to true life, uninhibited by the prison we once lived. Cassidy LaMair, a California native, knew her chains all too well. They usually took the form of her emotionally and verbally abusive father that left her trying to survive the next moment.

When Cassidy came to college at K-State change became a welcomed friend. Finding herself on a dorm floor surrounded by once strangers and now dear sisters, Cassidy began to explore the person of Jesus. It was an open and honest opportunity to ask questions and dream about what God could do in her own life.

On a cold night in her dorm room, cuddled up in a blanket going over a verse, Cassidy met the Lord in fullness. She was overcome with the most intense and pure feeling of love. In her gut she felt this deep reaffirming voice saying, "I love you" over and over again. It was in this moment Cassidy realized she had been caged in by anger that ate her from the inside out and chained to a deep fear of the world that kept her from truly living.

In surrender and experiencing beautiful and redemptive grace, Cassidy is no longer the same girl. She is free. Free to love, free to live, free to experience the fullness God has for her. Cassidy is no longer a prisoner but a beautiful, new creation in Christ.