What a question in my college dorm room revealed about grace and about me.

For most of my life, I thought being the “good girl” was one of my greatest strengths.

I was the church girl. The rule-following girl. Always involved. Always dependable.

You know…the “Ms. Goody Two Shoes” type.

I loved God. I really did.

But underneath all my faithfulness was something I couldn't see yet. I trusted Jesus to save me, but I was trusting myself to keep me saved. I had built a performance-based faith, measuring my walk with God by how well I performed.

The Question That Exposed It

I didn't realize that until a knock on my dorm room door during my first semester of college.

A young woman from an evangelism team stopped by one evening. We talked for a while, and before she left, she asked me a question I had heard before. Ironically, I had asked other people that same question many times.

She asked,

“If you were to stand before God today and He asked why He should let you into heaven, what would you say?”

I knew the church answer. I knew the verses. I knew what I was supposed to say.

But what came out of my mouth shocked me.

I answered,

“Because I live right. I am faithful to my church. I try to do everything I'm supposed to do.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I knew they had exposed something deeper.

She looked at me gently and said something that has stayed with me ever since:

“You could never be good enough to earn access to heaven. Only what Jesus did for you could do that. Put your faith in what He did, not in what you've done.”

I had grown up in church most of my life, yet somehow I had quietly built my relationship with God around achievement instead of surrender.

Self-righteousness is sneaky. It rarely looks obvious. Sometimes it looks like discipline and responsibility. Sometimes it looks like being the girl who trys to “live right.”

When Grace Became More Than a Verse

Then I discovered something that changed everything: grace begins where performance ends.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Ephesians 2:8–9 (NKJV)

Knowing that verse and actually living it turned out to be two very different things.

In the years that followed, I kept showing up and doing all the “things”. But if I'm honest, the struggle didn't disappear after that dorm room conversation. Sometimes I rested in grace. Other times I quietly slipped back into performing, measuring my worth by what I was doing for God instead of who I already was in Christ.

Marriage. Motherhood. Ministry. Business. They all had a way of feeding those habits without me even realizing it.

What I Carried With Me

Looking back now, I can see where many of those patterns began and how deeply my experience of love growing up shaped my understanding of God.

I am a daddy's girl.

My father was gentle and warm in a way that made me feel secure simply because I was his little girl, not because of anything I had done. Because of that, I never wanted to hurt him. I never wanted to disappoint him, not out of fear, but out of love.

My mom was different. She loved me fiercely too, but her love came with structure, accountability, and real consequences. Somewhere along the way, I learned how to stay inside the lines and present the best version of myself.

Without realizing it, I carried both of those patterns into my relationship with God.

On days I was doing well, I felt close to Him.

On days I wasn't, I pulled back until I could get myself together.

I performed when I felt strong and hid when I didn't.

Grace Was There All Along

Several years ago, my parents went home to be with the Lord just six months apart. Grief has a way of stripping everything down to what is real.

And in that grief, God gently reminded me of something I had overlooked for many years.

The love I had spent my life trying not to disappoint was only ever a glimpse of His love for me.

A love that was never based on my performance at all.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”
Ephesians 2:4–5 (NKJV)

Even then.

Even there.

Even before we cleaned ourselves up.

That is where grace has been waiting for us all along.

For the one who has never truly understood grace.

For the prodigal ready to come home.

For the older brother who has spent years trying to earn what was freely available all along.

For the exhausted church leader.

For the striving Christian.

For the person trying so hard to get it right that they've forgotten Jesus already did what they could never do for themselves.

This is a place to stop trying to earn God's acceptance and learn to live from the grace He has already given through Jesus.

If you've been exhausting yourself trying to earn what Jesus already purchased, I hope you'll stay awhile.

I'm still learning that grace changes everything.

Grace you can't earn. Love you can't lose.

I'm so glad you're here!