Graduate student shares testimony of God’s faithfulness through anxiety in her work as author, speaker

Taylor Murray (’22) remembers staring out a plane window as a young child and watching America and all familiarity slip away. She understood why her missionary family had chosen to say goodbye to their home in Florida and move to Japan to share the Gospel, but her mind was overwhelmed with the feeling of leaving everything she knew for the unknown.

“In that one plane ride from the U.S. to Japan, my entire world died,” said Murray, now a graduate student at Liberty University. “How do you process that as a 9-year-old?”

Murray is a published author and traveling speaker pursuing her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling after receiving her B.S. in Christian Leadership: Women’s Leadership. Calling upon her own experiences overseas and as a young woman who struggles with anxiety, she has used her two books, numerous speaking engagements, and a growing presence on social media to help others better understand and address their mental health through a Christian mindset. She prays that the Lord will continue to use her voice as one of hope and relatability to other women facing the same storms of mental illness that she has battled.

“While not negating the challenges and the difficulty that my whole family went through in that move to a new country, I would never want to change the way my worldview has been shaped and my faith has been impacted by these experiences,” she said. “This was so formative in who I became and who I’m still becoming, how I see the world, and how I relate to other people.”

Although adjusting to a new life in a foreign country proved difficult, it was also a season of growing closer as a family. Her family worked alongside the local church plants during the day, and they invited their Japanese neighbors for dinner each week, seeking to build friendly foundations while breaking down walls of hesitancy that seemed to be all around them.

“I saw God work in such a powerful way as he pursued people’s hearts who had never heard Him before,” she added, noting that building relationships and trust with locals before sharing the Gospel is critical in Japan, as most Japanese do not begin acknowledging people by their first name until they have known them for well over five years.

After seven years of living in Hiroshima and faithfully inviting families into their home, her parents joined some national believers in planting a bilingual church where her father served as the pastor.

“It was definitely a big family effort,” Murray said. “Slowly, we began to learn that embodying the Gospel through the way we lived was the most effect way to share this message.” There were times that we were able to verbally share the Gospel with people, but the majority of our time was spent building relationships, asking questions, inviting people to come to the Japanese congregations or the Christmastime services, and having people over and hearing their stories.”

As a teenager, Murray discovered a passion for writing and began writing for various mission-based platforms and speaking at conferences in the missions community. When she was 14, she published her first book, “Hidden in My Heart,” about processing her family’s overseas transition.

The anxiety she experienced as a child intensified as a young adult. After graduating high school in 2016 and studying at a Bible college in Germany for a year, her condition became severe; she was diagnosed with clinical anxiety and underwent two-and-a half months of resident treatment at a hospital in the U.S.

“I felt a lot of shame for going through this struggle,” Murray said.

But her heart for ministry continued to drive her forward. In 2017, after looking into several Christian universities in the U.S., Murray enrolled in Liberty’s Bachelor of Science in Christian Leadership: Women’s Leadership program. During her sophomore year, she began working on another book, “Stop Saying I’m Fine,” which focuses on her personal emotional struggles that she said she had always wanted to hide and ignore. She published the book in November.

“It was scary,” she said, referring to making her story public. “The book is a generational call to honesty with ourselves, others, and God. I wrote really transparently in the book. I wanted to try to name experiences that I and a lot of others have had but just might not know how to put into words until now. I wanted to make others feel less alone.”

For the book, Murray spent more than three years researching emotional health and speaking with professionals.

“I met with professors, I met with pastors, I asked different authors if they would be able to meet with me and teach me,” she said. “I began amassing information. I love learning about the intersections between spirituality and psychology in order to inform my writing.”

Throughout her writing process and her overall time at Liberty, Murray is thankful for the personable care she received at the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity and the School of Behavioral Sciences.

“At the School of Divinity, I remember meeting with professors and knowing that they cared so much about who I was as a person and not just the academic or theological knowledge that I was learning. They cared deeply about my relationship with the Lord, who He was calling me to be, and how He was calling me to serve Him.”

Murray served on the leadership team in her residence halls, where she would often provide support to students struggling with shame in their experiences of anxiety and depression. This past year, Murray worked in Liberty’s Office of Spiritual Development as a senior resident shepherd, a role that allowed her to disciple, teach, and invest in the lives of other resident shepherds as they serve students.

Murray traveled throughout the spring and summer speaking at conferences about her book and sharing her testimony. She plans to launch a podcast in the fall, titled “Faith and Feelings.” After she completes her master’s in 2025, Murray will pursue a job as a licensed counselor.