Olivia grew up with a distorted view of God, struggling with religious OCD, anxiety, and fear. Everything changed when she started reading the Bible in high school and discovered who God really is. Olivia shares how God's Word transformed her understanding of His character, how sharing the gospel helped her overcome anxiety, and how stepping into high school leadership—despite her fears—became one of the most purposeful decisions of her life.
I grew up going to Bible studies, and so me and Jesus, we've been locked in for a minute now, and I had a pretty like messed up understanding of who God was because I have religious OCD, and so for a while I thought that I had to relate to God through like rituals and like repetitive prayers and things like that, and so that was kind of the only way that I communicated with God for a long time, and I was really, I was consumed with a lot of like anxiety and fears of like uncertainty, and like if I stopped doing these things, then like bad things were gonna happen, and also like just a lot of like fears of like what other people think about me and anxieties, and it wasn't until I went into high school I started to read the Bible regularly, and God's words, they like transform my life because it wasn't just my own thoughts anymore. It wasn't just these like anxious feelings that I had. I had like God's thoughts that I could like listen to, yeah, and so that really transformed my life in a lot of ways was just reading the word of God, and I started to understand more of like who God was, which was very different from my understanding previously, and as I was reading the Bible and going to high school group, I remember reading passages like Philippians 2 where it talks about like Jesus being in very nature God didn't consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.
Rather, he took the very nature of a servant being made in likeness as a man. He like what came to the cross, you know, and I was reading that, and I was like that's crazy. Like if Jesus did all this, like I should probably go tell a few people about it, and so I think it was through like God's words like transforming my heart, and just like he just like continued to grow my understanding of who he was, which was so good and gracious and different than I had thought before, and then also like um I understood that his love for people is so profound.
So I started to like share the gospel with other people in high school and started to learn how to serve other people, and it was really scary at first. I was like everyone's gonna think I'm like a Jesus freak or something like that, and then but actually it was like super helpful for my anxiety and my fears to get outside of myself because beyond like these like fears I had, Jesus was on this mission to save humanity, and I could like sit idly or I could be a part of that mission, and through like sharing the gospel, I made some of my closest friends, and like found so much joy and purpose in doing that. People think like mental health is a hindrance to following God, instead of you can find so much victory in serving other people.
It's like so much more blessed to give than to receive, so when you take the focus off of yourself and put it onto Jesus, like it just brings so much joy into your life. You're like this is actually not as big as I thought it was. Like when I'm looking at God who is so much greater than these things I'm fearful about.
Soon after those events happened, I moved into the ministry house, which was scary because I was like worried I was gonna be crying on the couch all the time. I didn't want my roommates to see me like that, and then and I did cry on the couch a lot a lot of times, but it was really good. I feel like God taught me a lot about being vulnerable with people through that and like living in a close-knit community and like grew my friendships in a lot of ways.
And pretty soon after I graduated high school, I got asked to go back into high school ministry and to lead, and that was very scary. I was like I'm just not like I don't think I'm a naturally gifted leader. Like all my roommates they call me oblivious.
Like I'm not like discerning or strategic. Like it's not really giving leadership, you know. So I was nervous about that, and there was like some people in my life who like disagreed with like that decision to go into high school ministry.
And so I was I was just like fearful of like how do I know that this is like the right decision to make. So I just prayed about it for a long time, and I felt like no God like this is what you want me to do. And so I started leading in this group called Bronx, and it has been awesome.
It's like probably the best part of my life. Like I just so enjoy like the high schoolers there, and it's like such a blessing in my life. I've learned so much about following Jesus and who he is through that, and through like the boldness and courage that my students have in their faith.
And also just through like failure and stuff and failing leadership, I've learned a lot about God and his grace and who he is. And I've really enjoyed teaching the Bible, especially because it's transformed my life in so many ways. Like my understanding of who God was was like completely transformed by his words.
So like I just love getting to teach it to other students now. I would say it's just it's so much more blessed and purposeful to like give out to other people than to receive. Like especially like with these the things I went through my senior year of high school, I just realized like this world it brings so much death and destruction, and it's not worth following for.
It's not worth following my life with. And so I would so much rather follow Jesus who has an eternal purpose and live for something eternal, and I can do that in the ministry house. And I feel like I've been able to experience my faith growing a lot through living here and learning from my roommates and my friendships here in the college group.