Tori DeWitt didn’t come to Good Shepherd because she had figured out what she believed.
In many ways, she came because she hadn’t.
After her mom passed away, Tori’s dad began attending Good Shepherd KC. He was looking for a way to feel connected to his wife through church. Every week, he asked Tori if she wanted to come with him.
“He never pressured me to go.” She said. “But he always asked.”
At first, she went for him.
But somewhere along the way, she found something she hadn’t expected: a community willing to make room for her grief, her questions, and even her anger with God.
Tori had an image of pastors as older men standing before a congregation, telling people what to believe and how to live. Then she met Pastor Matt and Pastor Diannah.
They listened.
They didn’t pretend to have all the answers. They didn’t expect Tori to have them either. They talked with her about what she was feeling and gave her space to wrestle with a loss that had changed everything.
For Tori, that mattered.
She was still trying to understand how a God who loved her could allow her to lose her mom.
In August, Tori chose to be baptized.
She describes that decision with striking honesty. Baptism became, in part, a way of “forgiving God” for losing her mom.
She knew God offered her forgiveness. Somehow, standing in those waters gave her permission to release some of what she had been carrying toward God, too.
“I felt like so much tension was released,” she said.
Her questions didn’t disappear. Her grief didn’t disappear.
But something shifted.
She was beginning to discover what it felt like to have a community around her.
A few months later, Tori took another step. In February, she walked into the Soul Sisters event alone and joined more than 200 women for a day of connection and conversation.
She didn’t know where she belonged in the room.
Then Shannon invited her to sit at her table.
It was a simple invitation, but Tori remembers it.
Someone saw her. Someone made room for her.
Throughout the day, the speakers and their stories made an impact, but so did the experience of walking into a room alone and discovering she didn’t have to remain that way.
She had found a place to belong.
Today, Tori is a freshman at Missouri State University, navigating a new version of the same experience. She is away from home, adjusting to college, and continuing to find her way through grief and anxiety. During the busy summer before classes began, she had drifted away from some of the spiritual practices and church connection that had become important to her.
Now she’s finding her way back.
She talks to God out loud. She looks for moments of stillness. She’s exploring student ministries and beginning to build friendships with genuine people, those who can hold space for her without trying to fix everything.
And she’s learning that sometimes finding community begins with being willing to say, “I need help.”
It’s something she hopes other young people will remember when they find themselves struggling or feeling overwhelmed.
Give yourself time and space. Turn off some of the distractions. Learn to listen to yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are people willing to be there for you, and someday, you may have the opportunity to be that person for someone else.
Tori is still figuring out faith. She’s figuring out college. She’s learning how grief changes and how life continues around it.
She doesn’t need to have it all figured out.
That’s one of the things Good Shepherd taught her.
Sometimes faith begins with simply making room for the questions, the grief, God, and one another.
