Before I ever knew what “calling” meant, I knew I loved words.
It all started in the fourth grade. Our class was learning about rhyming and poetry, and our teacher gave us an assignment to write a limerick. I wrote about a topic typical of a nine-year-old – a guy named Fred who bumped his head or something silly – but that exercise sparked something inside me. I realized I loved writing.
As I got older, I filled notebooks with poems no one asked for (especially the boys I wrote them for). I wrote song lyrics in the margins of my homework. I scribbled dramatic lines about faith, friendship, heartbreak – all the big emotions that felt too heavy to carry without putting them somewhere. Words were how I processed the world. They were how I made sense of joy. And they were how I survived confusion.
I didn’t realize it then, but through writing, God was teaching me how to listen.
The Early Love: Poetry and Songwriting
There’s something sacred about poetry when you’re young. It feels secret and powerful at the same time. I loved how a few carefully chosen words could hold so much meaning. I loved how songwriting let me say things I didn’t know how to speak out loud.
When I wrote, I felt seen – even if no one else read it.
Looking back, I see how those early poems and songs weren’t just hobbies. They were practice. They were training grounds. They were invitations to pay attention to beauty, to brokenness, to the quiet nudges in my heart.
God was shaping my voice long before I knew I would need it.
Falling in Love with Journalism
In college, my love for words took on a new form. I discovered journalism.
Journalism wasn’t just about self-expression. It was about truth. It was about clarity. It was about asking better questions and telling stories that mattered. For the first time, I realized my voice didn’t only exist to process my own world – it could help illuminate someone else’s.
I fell in love with interviews – with sitting across from someone and asking them to share their story. I loved the responsibility of capturing their words accurately. I loved the weight of it.
Journalism refined me. It taught me discipline. It taught me that words carry power and therefore require care.
It also taught me courage.
Because telling the truth – even gently – isn’t always comfortable.
Wrestling with Fear
When I began to write opinion columns for my college newspaper, I realized something else: using your voice for God requires surrender.
It’s easy to write when it’s about you. It’s harder to write when obedience is involved. It’s harder still to speak when you know your words might challenge, encourage, convict or even disappoint.
I wrote an article to speak out against hypocrisy in the Church. I wrote a column about my conviction to stop watching a popular TV show because of its anti-Christian themes that were starting to affect my worldview. I wrote truth that wasn’t necessarily easy to swallow.
There were moments I wanted to shrink.
Moments I questioned whether my words mattered.
Moments I compared my voice to louder, more polished ones.
But every time I tried to quiet what God was stirring in me, the restlessness grew.
I learned that your voice isn’t defined by its volume or palatability, but by its alignment with God’s truth.
When Voice Becomes Calling
God doesn’t waste our early passions.
The little girl who wrote poems?
She was learning to feel deeply.
The teenager who wrote songs?
She was learning vulnerability.
The college student who studied journalism?
She was learning truth and responsibility.
All of it was preparation.
Finding my voice wasn’t about discovering something new. It was about recognizing what had been there all along and choosing to offer it back to the one who gave it to me.
When I write now, I don’t write just to be heard.
I write to be faithful.
I write to reflect God’s light.
I write to tell stories that remind people that the Lord is at work in his people and has a plan and purpose for each of us.
I write because words can build, restore and point hearts back to God.
Using My Voice for Him
Using your voice for God doesn’t always mean standing on a stage. Sometimes it looks like:
Your voice is a gift. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s yours.
And when surrendered, it becomes more than expression. It becomes ministry.
I’m still learning. Still refining. Still asking God to purify my motives and guide my words.
But I know this: The voice he gave me was never meant to stay hidden in a notebook.
It was meant to be used.
For truth.
For beauty.
For courage.
For him.