Sam Houston students discuss difficult seasons, finding faith in Jesus and the role Christian community has played in their lives
Two Sam Houston students shared deeply personal stories of hardship, faith and transformation during a recent episode of “Students of the Kingdom,” describing how their relationships with Jesus Christ changed the direction of their lives.
Host Josh Mahshi welcomed Gio Zamarripa and Khyrin Colbert to the program for a conversation centered on their testimonies and experiences as college students seeking to live out their Christian faith.
Both students are involved in campus ministries and said serving alongside other students has become an important part of their college experience.
For Zamarripa, however, the path that eventually brought her into Christian community at Sam Houston followed years of instability, abuse, depression and questions about whether God was real.
Zamarripa recalls a childhood marked by instability
Zamarripa said she was removed from her mother’s home when she was 5 and entered foster care. She later moved to another foster family before eventually returning to live with her mother. The four years that followed as some of the most difficult of her life.
“The man she was with, my youngest brother’s dad, he was very abusive,” Zamarripa said. “It was a lot.”
Alcohol was also a significant part of the environment and she and her brothers were frequently alone.
Although Zamarripa had been exposed to church at different points during her childhood, she said Christianity did not initially mean much to her.
“There was just so much going on around me that it was like, ‘I don’t really believe in this,’” she said.
After relatives noticed bruises on her, Zamarripa said she and her siblings were removed from the home again. She then lived with an aunt for approximately three years.
During that period, her aunt began believing in God and taking the family to church.
Zamarripa said she became more open to the possibility of God’s existence, but she later recognized that much of what she experienced at church was based on emotion rather than a personal faith.
“It was more of a feeling kind of thing,” she said. “It was something that I needed to hear.”
At the same time, Zamarripa said she struggled increasingly with her self-image.
“I just really, really hated myself,” she said. “I did not want to look at myself in the mirror.”
Depression deepens during an isolated season
Zamarripa eventually returned to live with her mother. By 2020, she said isolation and depression had become increasingly difficult.
“I was really alone,” Zamarripa said. “I was just really caged in with myself.”
Her struggles continued after high school. Zamarripa said her mother became seriously ill, leading her to delay college for a year while helping care for her mother and brothers.
Unable to attend school and unable to find work, Zamarripa said she spent significant amounts of time alone with her thoughts.
She described reaching a point where she harmed herself and questioned whether her life had value.
“I would just beat myself down all the time, saying just how worthless I am and that there is really no point or worth of me living,” Zamarripa said.
She also began thinking about suicide.
“I just didn’t want to live,” she said.
Yet during that same period, something began changing.
Zamarripa said she started praying.
She prayed before meals and began telling God directly about the fear and pain she was experiencing.
“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to live like this. I’m scared,” Zamarripa recalled praying.
At the same time, she said she did not want to leave her family behind.
Her prayers eventually became a request for direction.
“Please guide me to a path that leads towards you,” she recalled praying. “I’m tired of being alone all the time and I don’t know what to do.”
An unexpected walk leads to a conversation about Jesus
After eventually arriving at Sam Houston, Zamarripa said an ordinary walk across campus became a turning point in her life.
She was walking down a hill she normally did not use because she needed to visit the Residence Life office. Along the way, she encountered a staff member from the Baptist Student Ministry named Andrea at a Sweet Tea ministry outreach.
Zamarripa stopped to find out what was happening.
She already understood it was connected to Christianity and remembered thinking, “Maybe this is my time because I don’t know how to search for God.”
Andrea shared the gospel with her and invited her inside.
The conversation helped Zamarripa understand something she said had never been clear to her before: the significance of Jesus.
“I knew about Jesus here and there, but I didn’t know you needed him,” Zamarripa said. “I know he died for us, but I didn’t know why he died for us.”
Andrea explained repentance and what it meant to surrender her life to Jesus.
Zamarripa said she prayed that day and gave her life to Christ.
She also received her first Bible.
“I was so awkward and I was so scared,” she said of praying. “I don’t even know how to pray that well.”
Her understanding of prayer has since changed.
“I learned now that there is no praying well,” Zamarripa said. “You’re speaking to God.”
Faith becomes more than a single moment
Zamarripa said accepting Christ did not mean every aspect of her life immediately changed.
For several months, she continued living much as she had before. Gradually, however, she said she began experiencing conviction about her words, choices and behavior.
During winter break, she reached another pivotal moment.
“If I gave my life to Jesus, what does this really mean?” Zamarripa recalled asking herself.
She said she prayed and recognized that following Christ required surrendering the things she continued holding onto.
“I know that this means that I have to give everything that I hold in this world away,” she recalled praying. “I have to detach myself from these things and just give it all to you.”
Zamarripa said that was when she began taking her relationship with Jesus more seriously.
She also began serving in ministry and eventually developed a regular habit of reading the Bible.
That did not come naturally.
“I hate reading,” Zamarripa said.
During spring break, however, she recognized how much time she spent looking at her phone and other screens. She began reading Scripture daily.
“I was like, man, I really needed this,” she said. “We can’t live without the Word.”
Bringing a changed life back home
Returning home brought another challenge.
Zamarripa said members of her family do not share the same faith she has developed, and she found it difficult to talk about the changes in her life with people who had known her before.
“Having boldness in family is so hard because they’ve known you and now you came back and you’re all changed,” she said.
But Zamarripa said reading Scripture helped her have conversations with members of her family.
Her youngest brother became curious about God and Jesus, she said, and began attending church with her.
“He even got to share with a couple of his friends,” Zamarripa said.
She said she continues struggling with fear when talking about her faith, particularly with those closest to her.
“I don’t want to be led by fear, but by the Spirit,” she said.
Zamarripa also said her outlook on ordinary life has changed dramatically.
“Waking up is such a blessing,” she said. “Getting ready for the day is such a blessing. Having food on my table, having a roof over my head, everything’s so different.”
Colbert grows up around church but without understanding her faith
Colbert’s story began differently.
She said she grew up in a Christian household with parents who were involved in church.
But attending church and understanding Christianity were two different things. “I would go to church and I wouldn’t understand a thing,” Colbert said.
As a child, she stayed close to her parents rather than participating with other children. She learned to pray, but said she did not understand what prayer meant.
That pattern changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Colbert was in seventh grade when in-person church services stopped. Her family watched sermons online, but she said her interest faded.
As she grew older, she eventually stopped praying.
When churches reopened, she said her family did not return to regular attendance.
“We would just live like this church-free, no God, no nothing,” Colbert said.
Although she knew about God, Colbert said her understanding remained limited.
“I didn’t know much about God,” she said. “I didn’t know there was Jesus. I didn’t know he had a son. All I knew was God and that there was one.”
Friends begin showing Colbert another way
In high school, Colbert encountered friends who spoke openly about their faith.
One friend in particular made an impression.
“He was really in his word,” Colbert said. “Everybody knew that he was a Christian.”
Colbert said the student was not perfect, but his life visibly represented his beliefs.
At approximately the same time, Colbert began seeing more Christian content on social media.
She watched some of it and learned from it but repeatedly decided she could take her faith more seriously later.
“I was basically just setting my salvation date to another time,” Colbert said.
By her senior year, she said she had become more outgoing and developed more friendships, but internally she struggled.
Colbert described dealing with lust and being heavily influenced by friends and social media.
She repeatedly told herself she would stop certain behaviors, only to return to them.
“I couldn’t stop,” Colbert said. “It was an addiction.”
A social media video becomes a turning point
After graduating from high school, Colbert said Christian content appeared with increasing frequency on her social media feeds.
Videos discussed God, Jesus, the Bible and the Christian faith.
Eventually, she encountered a video on Facebook in which a woman described a dream about God.
The portion that remained with Colbert focused on God’s love and the separation experienced by people who were not walking with him.
“I straight up cried tears,” Colbert said.
The video forced her to confront the brokenness she felt in her own life and the promises she repeatedly made but could not keep.
Colbert said fear of being eternally separated from God was initially a significant motivation for turning toward Christianity.
But she does not regret the circumstances that brought her there.
“Had I not came across that video and felt what I did feel, I probably would have never gave my life to Christ,” Colbert said.
She said she repented and acknowledged that she could not continue trying to navigate life by herself.
“I need you,” Colbert recalled telling God. “I cannot do this life by myself because I’m a mess and I will struggle.”
Colbert said she gave her life to Christ in early July and has now been following Christ for more than a year.
Christian community changes Colbert’s college experience
Colbert said one of the biggest changes since becoming a Christian has been experiencing faith through community.
She pointed to friendships, discipleship and her involvement with other Christian students as examples.
“It’s really life-changing just how Christ changes you so much and how he transforms you and your heart’s desires,” Colbert said.
She described seeing fellow students gather around one another during difficult seasons.
“When someone’s going through hardships, everyone is just coming together and praying for the other,” Colbert said.
For her, those moments have demonstrated what Christian love looks like in practice.
“This is what Christ is all about,” she said. “This is his love here and this is where I’m meant to be.”
Zamarripa addresses those struggling with suicidal thoughts
Mahshi later asked Zamarripa what she would say to someone experiencing suicidal thoughts or self-harm.
Zamarripa acknowledged the difficulty of the question and said there was no single statement that could immediately resolve such a struggle.
Instead, she said she would begin by asking questions.
“Do you feel loved? Are you loved?” Zamarripa said.
She would then point the person toward what she described as the source of love she discovered in her own life.
“Then I would show them this source of love that was given to me, which is Jesus,” she said.
Zamarripa emphasized that helping someone in that situation requires more than one conversation.
“It would take a lot of time,” she said. “It’s not like I can just tell them one thing.”
Mahshi responded by emphasizing the importance of staying with people through difficult seasons rather than expecting a single conversation to solve everything.
“I want to be here for you,” Mahshi said. “Let’s walk through this together.”
Colbert: ‘Go to God as you are’
Mahshi asked Colbert what she would tell someone struggling with the same behaviors and temptations she faced before becoming a Christian.
Colbert said telling someone simply to stop is not enough.
“I can’t just say just stop because I tried doing that and it didn’t work,” Colbert said.
Instead, her message was to approach God without waiting to first fix everything.
“Go to God as you are,” Colbert said.
She said overcoming her struggles was not something she believes she accomplished by herself.
“I wasn’t able to get out of that struggle by myself,” Colbert said. “It was most definitely Jesus.”
Her advice to others was straightforward.
“Just give it all to Christ,” she said.
Students encourage others to share their stories
As the program concluded, Mahshi asked Zamarripa and Colbert what they hoped others would take away from their appearance.
Zamarripa encouraged Christians to tell others what has happened in their lives.
“If you have a testimony, you should definitely share it,” she said.
She also emphasized the importance of community.
“No one is alone in this,” Zamarripa said. “We need each other.”
Colbert encouraged students to be willing to act on their faith, particularly when an opportunity arises to share the gospel.
“We are all one body in Christ,” Colbert said. “Just be bold in your faith.”
Mahshi closed the episode by returning to a theme that ran throughout both testimonies: the belief that life was not meant to be lived alone.
“We’re not strong enough to do this on our own,” Mahshi said. “We need each other and we need Jesus. Most importantly, we need Jesus.”