NFL wife, Kristin Young, recently shared her journey to faith and the heartbreak that brought her to know Christ with her heart.

Young accepted Christ when she was twelve years old, but she did it for the white bible and party that her sister had gotten when she accepted Christ a year earlier. Young remained a surface Christian through college, marrying her college sweetheart, Bryant Young, along the way.

As Bryant was entering the NFL, Kristin was struggling with her faith. She wore a cross necklace every day but didn’t even know if she was a believed Jesus was who he said he was.

“I was very surface Christian,” Young said. “A friend of mine invited me to bible study, and in that bible study I realized I actually like learning about God.”

Young’s son was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor when he was thirteen years old. During that time, Young felt the Lord calling on her to lean on Him and trust Him with her heart.

“I felt like God [was] saying, ‘Kristin you have a lot of head knowledge. You know a lot about me, but do you really know me? You’re gonna have to trust me in the situation with your son.’ And I just sat a Jesus’ feet and I feel like that was to moment where I really had a relationship with Jesus where he was really my father,” she said.

After two years of fighting, Young’s son passed away at the age of fifteen.

“That was a moment to where God said, ‘Okay, can you handle this grief-burden? Not only can you handle this grief-burden but are you going to handle it well?’” she said. “I’ve learned that the journey that I’m on, the hope that I have started when I was twelve. It started with me having a notion about God, and then moved to me learning about God, and then it moved to me actually knowing God.”