Giving God the Pen

Surrounded by worship music and the pleasant hum of a vacuum, Bri Aunna Nance proceeded with her morning chores at home in King George, Virginia, like she did most days — cheerful and faith-filled. Yet the routine of the morning deviated when a nudge in the back of her mind cut through it all, a sudden prompting to check her phone. In characteristically big bubble letters, she found an incoming call identified with two words: Regent University.

Only the night before had she searched for Regent University with her grandmother. Had her grandmother submitted an inquiry? Or was this nudge the workings of God? She answered the call.

What followed was a conversation she had not rehearsed nor been prepared for. She was asked admissions questions: Where was she from? What did she like to do? What were her goals? And between every answer, she paused in silence, quietly asking the Lord what to say. “[The admissions counselor] was literally pulling teeth,” Bri Aunna laughs, describing the counselor’s pleasant demeanor despite Bri Aunna’s shock. Yet somehow, the counselor took Bri Aunna’s scattered answers and shaped them into two potential academic areas of study: government and journalism.

The conversation led to a final question, “Would you like to apply to Regent?” It was a culminating moment, preceded by layer upon layer of prayer. With uncertainty in her voice but confidence in her heart, Bri Aunna said, “Yes.” She was met with silence, followed by an audible click. “I just submitted your application,” the counselor told her. It was as simple as that.

From the first search to a completed application, it had taken little more than 12 hours for God’s plan for Bri Aunna to come to fruition. Bri Aunna herself has a phrase for what happened. It is the same philosophy she has lived since she was a little girl journaling relentlessly. “Give the Lord the pen,” she explains amicably, proudly. This surrendered heart carried her from a small Virginia town to the Regent University Honors College, to the university’s new journalism program, and to a desk interning at the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).

A God Who Talks Back

King George, where Bri Aunna grew up, is the kind of town where everyone knows everyone, and the entertainment is “go play in the woods” or “make a mud pie.” Bri Aunna is the only daughter among three brothers. Her walk with God first blossomed while attending her grandfather’s church, where, even at a young age, she zeroed in on a fundamental truth: faith is not a class you attend, but a relationship.

As sermons progressed, she would sit with her Bible and her journal, praying through it, pondering. “Okay, Jesus,” Bri Aunna recalls stating, explaining how she wished to read between the lines. “You say a mustard seed can move a mountain. What does that look like? Show me.” Much as other kids wrote to friends, she wrote to Him, journaling extensively, and she was joyful that He wrote back in her heart.

At age 9, that belief met its first test when she began attending Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses with her mother. The teaching that Jesus was a chosen teacher, not God in the flesh, didn’t align with what she had investigated in her journals. “He had already made Himself real to me,” she says. “You couldn’t just tell me this, and expect me to say, ‘Oh, okay.’” She couldn’t simply refuse to attend with her mother, so instead she asked questions, politely and relentlessly. Even at a young age, there was a profound maturity in her faith, a willingness to seek the truth and share it.

She read the congregation’s New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures cover to cover against the King James she’d grown up on, hunting for what had changed. She presented the differences to her mother, making a case for Christ. In Bri Aunna’s telling, her mother, at a loss for words but with a hint of pride, looked at her as if to say, “This is my child. I made this?” From then on, Bri Aunna was excused from attending.

Thus, at 12, Bri Aunna prayed the biggest prayer she knew: “Lord, let your will be done. I need to hear from and see you. I know you’re here with me, and I believe your Word, and I believe you’re leading and guiding me every second.” He said, “Just listen. Talk, and be with me.” For two years, alone in her room, she simply talked and listened. And her relationship with God flourished.

A Search Within

The summer before high school, the questions and blank spaces of her future grew heavy. When she brought it to God, the answer was unexpected, an unmistakable nudge to call her grandmother.

Her grandmother lived in Texas, and Bri Aunna hadn’t seen her in years. Yet the spirit in her heart pushed her to dial anyway. Upon connecting, before Bri Aunna could finish explaining her intention, she heard: “I’ve been waiting for your call.” When she explained her search externally for purpose and direction, her grandmother wisely countered, “Have you searched yourself?”

So, Bri sat with the Lord for a week while He brought back memory after memory. The newspaper clippings her mother handed her in her youth, which she rewrote as her own comics. The family newspaper she started, sharing stories of their lives and delivering it to every house on the street. The dictionary she taught herself to use because the adults spelled out things they didn’t want her to understand. “I didn’t even realize I was already doing it,” she says. God had been building a writer — a storyteller — for years, and nobody, including Bri Aunna, had yet to put a name to it.

Through it all, her grandmother kept her grounded. “I’m the type of person who grabs the ball and runs,” Bri Aunna says, defined by that upbeat passion. Her grandmother slowed her down, urging her to look at her life and her time and truly home in on what she wanted to pursue. “[My grandmother] is my manager,” she says fondly. Band was cut. Track was cut. Ballet was cut. In their place came AP classes, more writing, all punctuated by a 5 a.m. worship time that she maintains daily. “It’s literally like a boardroom meeting,” she says with cheer, “but it’s all worshipful.” Many days, she carried that into her public high school, praying over classrooms and teachers before the first bell.

No Compromise

During junior year, as the mounting pressure of SAT prep, scholarship forms, and college decisions loomed, Bri Aunna thought about Abraham. “The Lord told him to go,” she says. “All he had in that moment was, ‘Go. This place is no longer fit for you. There’s more.’ And when I read his story, ‘You will be blessed so that others may be blessed’ — not just his people, but nations — I thought, ‘This is grander than just me and my own circle.’”

As she toured colleges, Bri Aunna describes facing a growing stack of rejections from schools and God. Worn thin, she retells her sarcastic complaints: “You’re giving me all these ‘no’s.’ Can I hear a ‘yes?’” The Lord told her, “Just you wait. It’s coming.”

Stressed and uncertain, she called her grandmother. Ever the faithful rock, her grandmother’s advice cut straight through her anxiety. Ask the Lord straight.

That night, Bri Aunna asked God, pleaded with Him: “Where?” She was met with a name she’d never heard before: Regent University. She and her grandmother researched, recognizing Dr. M.G. “Pat” Robertson, CBN, and a peculiar word: journalism. It was an opportunity to write. And it was what Bri Aunna had prayed for.

“When I looked at what I wanted in a college, Regent checked every box,” she says. “I wanted medium-sized, not too big, not too small. And I wanted nice housing. I wanted the best of the best — that was the one thing I asked: ‘Lord, I want your best. No compromise.’”

Bri Aunna went to bed thinking of the teachers who had told her she’d never find a college that fit every expectation, that perhaps her aspirations were unrealistic. “But look what I did,” she proudly remembers the Lord saying.

The unexpected call from Regent Admissions came the next morning. With her high school grades, she was directed toward the Honors College and, with it, a new kind of challenge. “They’re not asking you just to do more work,” Bri Aunna says. “They’re calling you to apply these things.” She is proud to explain that the Honors College wades into philosophy and critical theory, always from a Christian perspective, preparing students to be “salt and light” in the rooms others might avoid. Between her academic pursuits, the Honors College, and her personal dedication, when Bri Aunna arrived, her tuition had been covered by Regent’s ample scholarship and aid opportunities.

Knowledge Flourishing

Thus, as Bri Aunna’s academic career at Regent began, Dr. Kevin R. Crawford invited her to join Regent’s new journalism program, built from the previous journalism concentration within communications, and she said yes before the curriculum was finished. For a while, some classes contained only Bri Aunna as the program’s first student, and she found herself in a unique position to offer feedback and build something special.

Bri Aunna remained academically ambitious, spiritually robust, yet personally grounded. The load was staggering: 21 credit hours, six at the 400 level, a film class in which she produced and directed a team, and more than 40 hours a week working at Chick-fil-A over winter break. In a spiritual gifts class taught by Chancellor Gordon Robertson, she heard a mantra that stuck with her: “The weapons of God are not to have a happy time in Jesus, but to be used.” As such, she maintained her busyness, confident that her dedication prepared her to be used in the name of the Lord.

Thus, she was determined to obtain a summer internship at CBN even though her professors told her there were no spots available. A friend gave her blunt advice that echoed her grandmother’s: just ask. It was an interesting thought, how sometimes we overcomplicate such things when they could be reduced to a simple act of initiative. Bri Aunna had handled her college choice in much the same way. With amusement, Bri Aunna realized she had been sitting in class for 15 weeks with Regent’s Chancellor — also President and Chief Executive Officer of CBN.

“Sometimes we think about that with God, too,” she explains. “We jump through all these hoops when He’s right there. Why don’t we just go straight to Him?” She walked up to Chancellor Robertson and asked for an internship with CBN. After some amusing back-and-forth, he directed Bri Aunna to his Executive Assistant, who confirmed an internship.

That summer, Bri Aunna turned 21 while writing national and international stories at CBN, marveling at the reach and impact of her words. “I’m praying through every word, every comma, every period, because this is going to give people the mustard seed to move mountains.”

Trust God and Go

With resolute dedication to her academic pursuits, Bri Aunna hopes to pursue a dual master’s in journalism and international relations. Someday, perhaps, she aspires to become a press secretary or to take a seat at a negotiator’s table across from leaders who have never heard the name of Jesus. CBN, she says, has been a training ground. Likewise, through Regent, she is becoming a Christian leader eager to change the world.

The girl in the pew, journal open, once asked Jesus to show her what a mustard seed could do. He has. “[My journey with God] went from ‘I believe you, Lord’ to ‘I see you,’” she explains. “I know for a fact God can do the impossible. I should not be sitting where I am.”

With much of her story ahead, Bri Aunna is still writing and still handing God the pen in her walk of faith. Thus, her advice to any student wondering what comes next echoes both her own journey and Abraham’s. “Trust God and go. There’s nothing better you can do than that.”