Cooking was so naturally ingrained in my life, I never realized how big of a part it played in it until recently. My mother cooked to keep us alive, not purely out of love for the game, so everything I learned from her about the kitchen was simple, for survival. I am grateful for the knowledge, and the time she spent to make sure her kids would never go hungry, but it informed me at an early age that cooking was a duty, not a hobby. My exposure to cooking for pleasure came from grandmother. I knew her in her much later years, so her version of Jamaican food was very healthy, substituting wheat flour for self rising in her dumplings and baking her chicken instead of frying it. She cooked for us often, just because she loved us. My father would take me to her house just to pick up tidbits of our culture, so estranged from us I hardly knew it. Now that I am older, my goal has been to reconnect with my roots. I stopped eating meat in high school, so searching for the flavors I used to love and recreating them became very important to me. Being in the kitchen, experimenting with new recipes from other Jamaican vegetarians, made me happier than ever. I want to study culinary arts to bring others the same joy food brought me and to teach others to appreciate the diversity of global cuisine. Cooking is not just a survival skill, but culture, tradition, love, passed down from generation to generation, and it is meant to be shared.

Growing up I had always assumed that I had no testimony worth recognizing. I was raised in the church, bouncing around as an infant from Baptist to nondenominational congregations with my parents as they searched for their perfect church home. I never seriously doubted the existence of God beyond general curiosity about what life is like as a nonbeliever or if He likes me. I even helped my mom teach Sunday school in middle school. Most testimonials involve a near death experience where the speaker reached rock bottom before having a coming to Jesus moment. They are inspirational, yes, but not everyone’s story. My testimonial is not dramatic or inspirational, but it is mine, and God gave me this experience for a reason. I loved interacting with scripture more than anything. The Bible was not a chore for me, but a collection of stories I could read and reread whenever I needed comfort. Being a child in the 2010s meant there were always new ways coming out to engage with it, from the Action Bible to church choir to Sound and Stage productions. All of my interests had some Christian variation to them that brought me closer to God. I was surrounded by Him, so it was easy as a child to incorporate Him into my everyday life. In fact, I became an active leader in one of these former church communities, helping lead songs and reading easy-to-digest versions of stories to toddlers with my mother in an effort to share with these children what helped me fall in love with my own faith. But things get harder, and as we get older, we learn that life, and faith, do not always come that easily. I would not consider my preteens as an era of unbelief, but they challenged the worldview I held so close to my heart. It was the first time I made friends outside of my tiny bubble of Christian private school friends and various church friends I picked up and fell out of touch with over the years. For once, I had to face the fact that not every atheist was simply ignorant, and not every atheist was a bad person. Some were actually really friendly people that I got along with, but there would always be this wall that I hit anytime they made cynical jokes about God, or introduced me to musicals that were fun, sure, but were not so good for my soul. I had to navigate the difficult choice between setting boundaries with people that I genuinely cared about and choosing my faith over my friends, potentially isolating myself in an environment that relied on comradery and teamwork to thrive. Eventually I distanced myself from those kids, not due to a sense of superiority, but simply to protect my own spiritual well-being. Entering high school meant daily Bible classes, group prayers before just about everything, and once again, Jesus was naturally a part of my everyday life. I can admit, I started to become comfortable with my standing with Him. After all, I prayed every day, not individually, but listening to your teacher pray before eating counted, right? I did not drink, smoke, curse, or any of those big sins that other kids were doing, so I still had the moral high ground in my eyes. But at the time I could not wrap my head around the fact that not doing the wrong thing did not automatically excuse me from not doing the right thing, either. I became lazy, neglecting to read my Bible outside of class, only praying selfish prayers or the occasional "heal the world" lip service Christians pay to prove that they still cared about political and social issues. The people who sparked the change within me were actually underclassmen, three girls a year behind me that took their faith seriously. They showed rather than told us that they were believers. I took a silent vow to become like them when I went off into college. Going away would not fix my slothful approach to my relationship with God, but it would give me a clean slate, and broader opportunities to reach out to other believers, helping to keep me on the right path. Now that I am on the verge of adulthood and my interests have shifted, I have had to take a more active role in my faith. I tried and failed to find a way to consistently integrate faith into my everyday life again since junior year. Even a simple thirty day fast from all music not released by Christian artists was a struggle. I attempted to reinvent myself every few months, mindlessly saving Pinterest Bible study plans that I never planned on sticking to, until I found a way to make my journey more personal. It is simple, I admit, but taking notes during service and meditating on them throughout the week has brought me closer to God than the shallow devotionals I forced myself through for the sake of consistency. My main goal as of late has been to hear His voice for myself. Sometimes I wish I was born in the Old Testament when God would speak to His people directly, since I can never honestly say I’ve heard His voice. I have no clue if any of my prayers have been answered, or if He just chooses to let me suffer through hardships on my own. Personally, though, I believe that there is something powerful in not knowing. To stumble through your life blind, choosing to believe that there is a hand on your shoulder guiding you when you cannot see them, is a valid way to experience God. Maybe I have to try harder. Maybe I have to be more faithful. I will never know, though, until the day I meet Him face to face, and I have had to come to terms with it. I still have a long way to go, but I pray that as I mature, I will hear His voice one day, and I will allow it to lead and guide me along the path He laid out for me.