I was born in a small coastal city in Florida known as Pensacola on July 1, 1987. I grew up like almost every other kid, going to school, playing with my friends, fishing, kayaking, baking, writing poetry, swimming at the beach, drawing, playing the flute, and spending lots of time with my grandmother in the kitchen.

While I was raised attending church every Sunday at our local UMC, around the ages of 10 or 11, I began to question whether God was truly real. At the age of 14, I became an atheist, but before this, I said a quick prayer to God one Sunday after church, that if He were real and wanted me in His Kingdom, then one day He would to reveal Himself to me personally.

I lived my life to the full, free from the confines of religious fear and indoctrination that plagued my life as a child. I traveled to Europe, explored other cultures, got into relationships, moved to Charleston, and eventually went to college to study anthropology. Over the years, I became increasingly interested in psychology when my boyfriend and I decided to relocate to Austin, TX. In 2014 or 2015, I was accepted to The University of Texas at Austin to finish my undergraduate studies.

While I was taking courses in the Summer, I felt a giant hole in the middle of my chest that I knew I was supposed to fill with something other than knowledge. When the funding for college didn’t come through, I went on a journey of trying to find and connect to God.

I plunged myself into Eastern forms of spirituality: Buddhism, Hinduism, and meditation hoping to have an experience or connect with God. I even thought about giving all of my possessions away and becoming a Buddhist nun, but nothing was happening. I wasn’t connecting to God or having any kind of spiritual experience.

That is, until my 29th birthday came around on July 1, 2016. We went to Zilker Park to have a picnic and fly our newly purchased heart-shaped kite when we got into a fight on the way back to the parking lot that lasted into the night. I felt so much pain over our argument that I asked my boyfriend for some space and he graciously gave me the apartment for the night to stay with a friend. At around 10:30pm, I made myself an ice cream sundae that I threw into the sink in my tears and depression. That’s when I finally broke down asked God, “What else is there?”

There was no answer. I said in my thoughts to God, “This is the first time I’m speaking to you in 15 years, and you’re not going to answer me?” I thought about it some more. Perhaps God wasn’t answering me because I asked the wrong question. That’s when I began to think, “If I could ask God for something else, what would it be?”

I thought about all of the hurt and pain over the last six years between me and my boyfriend. While we could be the best of friends, things between us had built up over time and I felt the pain in my heart from the flaws of our relationship. I knew this might be the end of things between us. A few months earlier, my mom came by and began to talk about forgiveness. I knew Christians talked about forgiveness, and it seemed like a nice concept, but I didn’t know if forgiveness was truly real. So, I told God in my tears, “If you’re real, then I want to know what forgiveness is like.”

Suddenly, a waterfall from Heaven came down and filled my heart with so much forgiveness, peace, love, and joy that I was taken into a Heavenly realm by God and the angels where I was shown their love for all the souls of humanity. Two days after this experience, I found out it was “my time” to die. I was filled with the peace, love, and joy of Jesus as I found myself journeying home to Heaven.

You are Loved,

Kathryn Elsie