From the pages of Vogue to a life of purpose.

“There had to be more to life than this.”

When I was a little girl, people used to stop my mother in the street and tell her I should become a model. At the age of eight, I started doing fashion shows, photo shoots, and mannequin modeling. I was not very athletic — so this became a place where I could shine.

At seventeen, I signed with FORD Models Los Angeles — and they sent me to Europe.

For the next six years my life was full of auditions, commercials, and photo shoots. While earning a Broadcast Journalism degree, I modeled across the United States, Europe, and Australia — appearing in Glamour and Cosmopolitan, and even becoming Barbie for the 35th anniversary of the doll in Italy.

I lived among models whose lives were riddled with eating disorders. My days were measured in praise or criticism over my appearance — and slowly, I became deeply insecure.

After college I signed with Ford New York and Fashion Milan and moved to Milan, Italy, ready to hit the runway. I worked with elite photographers and designers, including Giorgio Armani. I opened his Giorgio and Emporio shows, and Armani chose my face for the makeup of his 1995 Spring Collection.

Yet at the pinnacle of my career, I found myself completely unfulfilled.

Desperate for approval, I starved myself for the designers and descended into anorexia. Thousands of miles from home, the fast-moving train to fame derailed in a painful crash that seemed to take every dream of my young heart with it.

The “beauty” my career depended upon finally betrayed me. Dark circles, cystic acne, a frame so thin you could count every rib down my back — my body bore the toll of a business that treated women as plastic and discarded them when they no longer measured up.

When Armani noticed my waistline had changed, he let me go. From there my career slid downhill, and I found myself wandering the streets of Florence, Rome, and Siena, searching for the meaning of life. In towering, majestic churches, I knelt and cried out for love — without any hope that my prayers would be heard.

I finally hit rock bottom in Munich, and cried out to a God I did not yet know.

Little did I know that God heard my cries — and was already there, ready to pick up the pieces of my shattered life.

I began to meet a series of strangers whose words changed the direction of my steps. By the beer gardens of Munich, street preachers handed me a New Testament. They brought me to a church, gave me an English Bible, and — quite literally — saved my life. One stranger told me I could not “sell beauty” — that I needed to turn around and go back the way I came. That one day, people would come to me, to hear what I had to say.

From nearly ending my life in a cold, empty apartment — to climbing the snowy mountains of Germany and discovering a Savior who could give me a new life and the love I had always longed for — I experienced the miracle of being sought out by the Creator of the universe, and rescued.

In the pages of His Word, I found the true meaning of love — and the security that comes from knowing my identity as a daughter of God.

Since I left the industry, my life has been transformed. I went back to school for my Master’s in Writing & Literature and began working with youth. Then I met my husband — the Cowboy — who has always urged me to use my story, my time, and my gifts to help others. He has an incredible story of redemption as well — and we like to say we’ve been twice redeemed. Together we’ve been blessed with three beautiful children and our family continues to grow and multiply.

It has taken time to heal from my past and turn it into purpose. But I have learned that when we cut the tie with who we once were and embrace who we can become, we are free to write a new story.

Today, my passion is helping others replace the lies they believe about themselves with the truth of how God sees them — and to know the unconditional acceptance we have in Christ.