Everybody, what is going on? You know what time it is. You're listening to join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma, daughter.

Thanks for joining. I am in the podcast studio with today's diva writer, Lauren Heiser.

Hey, everyone. Lauren, thank you for being here. I would love to get to know you a little bit better and just hear

how the Lord has worked in your life. So how did you come to know Jesus and then fast forward? What do you

up to today? Yes. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Oh, you're welcome. Thinking back to how I came to

know the Lord, his work in my life, really came to know the Lord in high school.

I grew up in a Christian household, but that didn't really click for me until I just kind of came to the end of myself, a junior year of high school,

and was really fishing for approval and popularity.

And, yeah, I just found myself at a really empty place where I didn't

recognize the Lauren that God made. And so he really, through a girl that I went to school with,

introduced me to Jesus and what it actually meant to have a personal relationship with him.

And from there, slowly just started learning about Jesus.

I grew up in a place where not the Bible Belt.

And where'd you grow up?

I grew up in Tucson, Arizona.

And so, yeah, being Christian was definitely not the normal thing.

That was edifying to me to learn what Jesus just means in a culture that is going the opposite way. But came to college and knew that I needed community, was craving community. I don't know if I would have called it at that point.

Sure. Community, but was craving that, craving to learn. And actually, somebody, a girl older than me at Water point. Sure. Community, but was craving that, craving to learn.

And actually, somebody, a girl older than me at Watermark, started discipling me and got

really involved in college ministry.

And that really shaped just the course of college and my spiritual development.

Learned truly what the gospel is and really took out any pressure, anything that I can do on my

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