Pray Boldly
Prayer is arguably the simplest and most complicated aspect of spiritual life. Prayer can mean different things to different people, but at its core, prayer is communicating with the sacred, with God. At the University of St. Thomas, we’ve embraced Pope Francis’s proclamation of a special focus on prayer in 2024, so it is our community theme for this academic year.
As a part of the MAX Stories series, MAX Studios shared incredible stories of prayer from our community, and one in particular still resonates—the story of how Kamryn Spell ’25 came to UST.
Spell left home at the age of 19 to become a professional ballerina, but adversity hit, and Kamryn felt betrayed by God. A trainee in a ballet company in Fort Worth, she was away from her family for the first time in her life.
“I feel like whenever you move away from home, that’s really a test of faith, whether or not you’re going to stick with your faith and keep going or if you’re going to fall off,” Spell said. “So, I made a decision to myself that I wanted to get closer to God, and I knew that if I did want to get closer to him, prayer was going to be the number one thing that I needed to do.”
In January 2021, Spell tore her ACL, which devastated her.
“I kind of felt betrayed by God because I had been eally trying to grow my relationship with him, and to me, it felt like I had been abandoned,” she said.
AMID THE DEJECTION, SPELL KEPT PRAYING.
“It was pretty difficult to even know that He was there. I was really lost. I didn’t know where I was headed. I couldn’t go back to my professional dance career because I was really badly injured, and it was going to take about a year to recover. So, I started this prayer routine where I would wake up in the morning and it was dark outside, really quiet in my house, and I would just sit in silence. I really just began to ask, ‘God, where are you leading me? What are we doing? Where is this headed?’ Over time, I slowly began to feel closer to Him again, and I began trusting Him again.”
Spell prayed and asked Him for a word to take her through this phase of her life and God gave her a word. Bold.
“Knowing that this was my word for the year, I felt as though God was trying to tell me to be bold in prayer, be bold with where I was headed, and bold with the decisions I made from there on out,” she said.
THEN, SOMETHING INCREDIBLE HAPPENED.
“As I’m driving down the highway one day, I’m looking at these billboards that I’m passing, and I see the word BOLD on this billboard,” Spell recalled. “I said ‘Oh my goodness. There’s Jesus. Jesus is with me.’ I was in prayer one morning, and I thought of that billboard. I remembered how it said, ‘Be Your Bold Self’ on it, and I remembered how God had wanted me to pray boldly and just be bold. In that moment, I felt as though God was telling me, ‘Go to St. Thomas, apply for St. Thomas, and go and see what I have in store for you.’”
Immediately bursting into tears, Spell relished how she had never had an experience where she so profoundly felt God opening a door for her. Her freshman class was starting in four days, but she applied, got in, and was shepherded by UST staff to become a freshman.
“I just kept remembering that word ‘Bold’ and the bold prayers that God had me pray and, I really thank Him so much for that opportunity because look at me now,” Spell said. “I’m able to tell my story to all of you.”
Spell held on to her hope, was steadfast in prayer, and knew her Creator would show up when she showed fidelity to Him.
Spell, currently a 2024-25 Clutch City Dancer for the Houston Rockets, has achieved remarkable milestones during her time at UST. She served as captain of the cheer and dance team, was crowned Ms. UST, and will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance. Despite enduring pain, frustration, injury, and dejection, she found strength, drive, dedication, and perseverance through prayer.
To see the full series and curated podcasts from MAX Studios Podcast Network on Prayer, visit: ustmaxstudios.com/tag/prayer.