Kai Summer
My whole life, I wanted to be one thing — a cop.
Seemingly random to most, but to me, it was a calling. One I fully intended to answer. I spent freshman year at one of the top criminology schools in the country… and admittedly, one of the top party schools too: Florida State University.
Semester one, I was inseparable from the nightlife. Semester two, I was doing police ride-alongs across the U.S., from Tallahassee to Los Angeles. Every siren and shift confirmed it — I wanted to serve.
But by the end of freshman year, as I looked in the mirror… I wasn’t proud. Despite having the “dream” college experience and inching closer to my career goal — I was further than ever from a deeper one: to one day be an awesome wife and a rock of a mother. I was building a GREAT college memory book — but at the cost of a solid future family.
So that summer, I took a ranch job in Montana. And there… quiet surrounded me. In the silence, I saw a pattern: every family I admired, every woman I wanted to be like, every mentor I respected — all had one thing in common: Catholicism.
The same faith I was baptized into, but since high school had brushed off as outdated, controlling, and inapplicable to Gen-Z. But the question — “Could there be more to Catholicism?” — stumped me that summer. And I knew there was only one way to find out.
So in the Fall of 23, I transferred from a school of 44,000 students to a Newman Guide University with 1,300 — Ave Maria University. And…I made a deal. I’d give Catholicism a fair shot until graduation. If I still didn’t believe, I’d walk away. But if I found something real, something true...I’d give the Lord my life.
Through patient professors, 24-hour chapels, and friends I never deserved — I’m humbled and grateful to say: everything changed.
That is… except the one thing that didn’t: the deep, unshakable desire to serve.
Only now, I know the mission looks different. I’m not called to serve with a badge and a gun — but to serve, with my whole life, the highest of all: Christ and His Church.
I pray my story may turn all glory to God’s incredible patience and providence. I transferred solely to investigate His existence — yet I walked the graduation stage belonging to Him.
If you’re searching, wandering, or waiting — I encourage you, He’s already near. And four simple words are life’s answer…Thy Will Be Done.