Ansley’s Story

Some wounds arrive far too early. For Ansley, loss became part of her story before she was old enough to understand it. Growing up in Whitefield, she experienced the unimaginable heartbreak of losing both of her parents. In the years that followed, she was lovingly raised by her grandparents, but the grief she carried left her with questions so many ask in the midst of suffering: Was God really there? And if He was, why would He allow something like this to happen?

By the time she entered high school, faith was not something she was actively pursuing. But when some friends and her sister invited her to Passion Camp, she decided to go. She wasn’t searching for Jesus, and she certainly wasn’t expecting her life to change.

What she found, though, was a community. The games were fun. The worship was powerful. But more than anything, she encountered people who genuinely cared about her. For perhaps the first time in a long time, she felt seen. One of those people was Jordan Bullard.

Jordan served as Ansley’s family group leader at Passion Camp, and is a current resident with Passion Students. Through countless conversations, steady encouragement, and faithful prayers, Jordan and the team continued to walk alongside her. They celebrated with her, listened to her questions, and kept believing that God was pursuing her—even when she wasn’t sure what she believed herself. Week after week, Ansley kept showing up. Then, at Winter Weekend this year, God met her in a way she never could have imagined.

As she heard about the love of Jesus displayed through His death on the cross, something changed. The God she had questioned in the midst of her pain revealed Himself not as distant, but as near. Not indifferent, but loving. Not absent, but pursuing. In a moment that would forever alter the course of her life, Ansley stood to declare her faith and surrendered her life to Jesus. The girl who had spent years wondering where God was discovered that He had been pursuing her all along.

Not long afterward, surrounded by family and friends at The Rising, Ansley stepped into the waters of baptism and publicly celebrated the new life she had found in Christ. The questions and pain that once defined so much of her story are now being met by the hope and healing that only Jesus can bring.

We tend to think there are places too far gone for Him to reach—a grief too deep, a history of pain too long, a heart that stopped looking years ago and wandered too far away to be found. Ansley is the answer to that. There is no distance He won’t cross. No darkness too dark, no silence too long, no child too lost in the waiting. He was near in the grief. He was faithful in the years of not-yet. He was pursuing a little girl in Whitefield before she ever knew His name, and He did not stop until He had her.

That’s the God this is all about—the One whose love has no edge you can reach, no boundary you can cross, no limit at all. He was still pursuing her heart when she couldn’t see it. And He is still, right now, making all things new.