I had just graduated from Kent State. It was May of 2009. I was excited, passionate and ambitious.

My degree was in broadcast news. I wanted to be an on-camera reporter. It sounds glamorous, right? You wear nice clothes, sit under studio lights, read from the teleprompter, engage in some nice banter with your co-host.

Not so much.

Many well-meaning people told me this would never happen. They told me I’d have to go the traditional small-town route and have a miserable lifestyle the first few years of my career.

For me, I was simply going after a dream God placed in my heart.

I’ve always believed that nothing is impossible with God. It sounds like a cliche Christian phrase, and while some people treat it that way, my hope is that other people would see my life as an example of God’s goodness and grace.

After graduating, I applied for 130 on-air jobs all throughout the United States. Everywhere from Idaho Fall, Idaho; Eugene, Oregon; Billings, Montana; Lake Charles, LA. To be honest, I had never heard of half of the places I applied, and never wanted to visit them, let alone move there.

A station in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina offered me a job. It was a modest $8.50 an hour. That’s about $16,000 a year. I am pretty sure that qualified me for food stamps and soup kitchens. I politely declined.

I received 9 other job offers over a 9-month period. After each job offer came in, I’d pray about it. I let peace be my guide. If I didn’t have peace about taking the job, I wasn’t going to take it.

I ended up turning down those 9 other job offers. My situation was a little bit different from a lot of other college graduates. My parents are extremely supportive, and they never pressured me to get a job quickly. They simple encouraged me to follow the path I felt God was directing me to take.

I attended Faith Family Church in Ohio lead by Pastors Mike and Barb Cameneti. It’s a phenomenal church that’s centered around the power found when you put your faith in Jesus.

While in a Wednesday night church service, Pastor Mike was preaching about the big dreams God places in our hearts. It was one of the most powerful services I have never attended. You can tell the atmosphere was different that night. You could feel the presence of God.

Pastor mike felt God spoke to his heart to share these words with us.

“He [God] has put dreams in some of your hearts and they’re going to come to pass fast. There’s no time to play around. It’s going to be a quick work,” he said.

Pastor Mike continued.

“God puts something in people, to fulfill an impossible dream. This is just the beginning for some people. Some people are going have some things that are going to happen so quickly, some dreams they thought were dormant or maybe never going to come to pass or come to pass years and years down the road. It’s going to happen quick. It’s going to happen quick!

That night, I prayed a bold prayer. I asked God for a full-time job at NBC’s TODAY show where I’d have a chance to work on the broadcast and digital platforms.

The next day, I received an email from a senior producer asking if I was interested in a position working with the digital team at TODAY.

I never applied for the position.

It was only going to be a three-month gig with no guarantee of being hired full time. I knew I’d end up working there because that’s what God placed on my heart that night at Faith Family Church.