To the Pastoral Leaders

To My Pastoral Leaders,

There are certain people God places into a life who become more than mentors.

More than teachers.

More than leaders.

They become pillars.

When I look back across my life—the beauty, the grief, the rebuilding, the questions, the healing—I can see your fingerprints in places you may never fully realize.

Thank you for walking with me not only through seasons where faith felt alive and joyful, but through the seasons where it felt heavy. Through the moments where I smiled in public while quietly carrying exhaustion, confusion, fear, memories, disappointment, and wounds I did not always know how to name. And for not allowing me to fake it with you.

You did not love only the polished version of me.

You loved the unfinished one.

You stayed when I was still learning how to trust.

You corrected me when my pride needed to be broken.

You challenged me when comfort would have slowly destroyed growth.

You refused to leave me shallow.

And that kind of love changes a person.

There were moments when your words cut deeply—not because they were cruel, but because truth has a way of reaching places nothing else can. You saw potential in me that demanded refinement, discipline, surrender, and maturity. Thank you for not confusing love with avoidance. Thank you for caring enough to tell the truth even when it was uncomfortable. Thank you for encouraging me in my walk in ways I never even realized I desperately needed.

In a world where so many people choose convenience over commitment, you chose the harder work of spiritual fathering and mothering.

You taught me that faith is not built in moments of applause.

It is built in obedience when no one sees.

In consistency when emotions fail.

In humility when pride wants control.

In surrender when God feels silent.

Some people only know how to celebrate gifts.

You taught me how to steward character.

And I think one of the greatest gifts you gave me was this:

You never allowed my story to stop at survival.

So many people saw the tragedy.

The injury.

The scars.

The fight to live.

But you kept calling me toward purpose.

You reminded me that my life was not preserved simply so I could look back at pain forever. You reminded me that God does not sustain people just to leave them surviving in the ashes. You helped me believe there could still be calling after devastation. Joy after trauma. Wholeness after suffering. Beauty after fire.

Thank you for walking with me. For teaching me to be a better Youth Pastor, even when choices were hard. You helped me understand that the roll I have in these kids lives is not just in the easy moments but when I am hurting and they are too.

For teaching me Discipleship and what it means it sit with the Lord. What it means to simply lay it at His feet and not make it all on my strength.

For welcoming me to your homes for dinners when I didnt have family in the area to eat with. For treating me like a child of yours, not just another face.

For holding me when I needed extra love in a moment with no judgements.

For entering my story either right away and refusing to give up on me or you have entered years later with a "is that her?" And excitement when I returned to where I felt God called me to be. You made it so easy to be who I was created to be because God put you in the path to help me.

As another burn anniversary approaches, I find myself reflecting not only on the people who helped save my life physically, but on the people who helped rebuild it spiritually. Because surviving something traumatic does not automatically teach someone how to live afterward. But your leadership helped teach me that.

You taught me that I am not defined by what happened to me.

I am defined by the God who carried me through it. I have amazing scars that get to share the testimony of the Lord every day!

You taught me that scars are not proof that God abandoned someone.

Sometimes they are evidence that He refused to let them die there.

You helped me stop seeing myself merely as the injured child people pitied, and helped me begin becoming the man God was calling me to be:

A woman with compassion because she has suffered.

A woman with conviction because she has wrestled.

A woman with tenderness because she knows pain.

A woman with endurance because she has seen God remain faithful in fire after fire after fire.

There were seasons where I thought my greatest testimony was simply surviving.

But through your leadership, I began to understand that survival was only the beginning.

You called out leadership in me when I still felt weak.

You called out strength in me when I still felt broken.

You called out purpose in me when grief still clouded my vision.

You reminded me that God was not merely trying to keep me alive—

He was forming me.

Forming my heart.

Forming my character.

Forming my voice.

Forming my faith.

Forming the kind of man who could one day help carry other hurting people through darkness because he himself had once been carried.

And some of the strongest moments of healing were not dramatic moments at all.

They were the quiet ones.

The conversations after church.

The prayers spoken softly over my life.

The times you noticed I was struggling before I said a word.

The sermons that somehow reached directly into wounds I thought I had hidden well.

The moments you believed in me enough to hold me accountable to more.

The times you refused to let me settle for bitterness, isolation, self-protection, or fear.

You loved me enough to keep pointing me toward freedom.

There were moments my faith felt fragile.

Moments I wrestled deeply with God.

Moments where grief sat heavier than hope.

Moments where I wondered why suffering became part of my story so early.

And yet, through your leadership, I learned that faith is not the absence of wrestling. Sometimes faith is choosing to remain in God’s presence while carrying questions you cannot yet answer.

You showed me that mature faith is not pretending pain does not exist.

It is trusting that God remains good even when pain does.

That lesson changed my life.

Because of your leadership, I no longer want merely to survive my story.

I want to steward it well.

I want my life to reflect the goodness of God more than the tragedy of my past.

I want people to encounter hope when they encounter me.

I want my scars to speak of redemption more than suffering.

I want my life to become proof that God can rebuild what fire tried to destroy.

And part of why I believe that so deeply is because you believed it first.

Whether you entered my journey as a child and walked me through dark moments when I did not want to survive, or whether you entered during college and taught me how to become a better leader, steward, and disciple, or whether you entered more recently and helped me flourish in ways I never thought possible—you have all left fingerprints on my soul.

You helped shape not only what I believe about God, but what I believe about people.

Thank you for every unseen sacrifice.

Every late-night prayer.

Every burden you carried for people who may never know.

Every time you poured out while exhausted yourself.

Every moment you chose obedience over recognition.

Leadership like that leaves marks on people.

Holy marks.

The kind eternity remembers.

I know I am still becoming.

Still being shaped.

Still learning what it means to live fully, love deeply, and follow faithfully.

But part of who I am today was built because you answered God’s call to shepherd people well.

One day, I believe Heaven will reveal the full weight of what your lives produced in others:

The prayers that protected people.

The wisdom that redirected generations.

The compassion that kept someone alive one more day.

The truth that rescued someone from destroying themselves.

The steady presence that reminded weary people they were not abandoned by God.

Until then, I simply want to say thank you.

Thank you for loving me enough to lead me.

Thank you for believing God’s best for me even in seasons where I struggled to believe it myself.

Thank you for refusing to let my life end at the chapter of pain.

Thank you for helping me become not merely someone who survived the fire—

but someone who now carries light because of what God did inside of it.

And thank you for proving that true shepherds do not merely preach to crowds.

They help carry souls home.

“Thank you” is nowhere near enough, and neither is this letter. But I pray you hear my heart in these words and understand that your faithfulness changed my life in ways eternity itself may be required to fully reveal.

With deep honor, gratitude, and love,

Kelsay