Marissa Parker was born to Pastor Kevin and Victoria Parker in Amarillo, Texas in 1990, and lived there until the age of 19, giving her heart to Jesus at the age of five.The youngest of three siblings in an athletic family, Marissa competed in basketball and volleyball through high school. With the opportunity to go to any federally-funded college or university in the United States on a full-ride scholarship, Marissa graduated from Indiana University South Bend in 2014 with a degree in General Studies.

After several years of convalescence due to autoimmune disease, the Lord has gradually, but miraculously healed her. Since 2018, she has worked in the healthcare and academic industries as a phlebotomist and literacy tutor. With over five years of tutoring experience, Marissa is also a TEFL-certified English language instructor and obtained her master's degree in Applied Nutrition from Lamar University in 2025. She has served in the ministry as a Bible teacher alongside her parents since 2014.

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Marisa.

How are you doing today?

I am wonderful.

How are you?

I'm excellent.

I'm excellent.

Thanks for asking.

What parts of the world are you in today?

I am in Amarillo, Texas.

All right, all right.

So tell me, how did you get to meet Jesus?

My parents were already committed Christians by the time I came along, and the thing I think what got my attention the most was the fact that for them it wasn't just appearances on Sundays, that it was something that they actually lived, and I could see Jesus in the way that they treated people, the way they conducted their business, and very early in life, the Lord just got my attention.

So I gave my life to the Lord at about five years old.

Of course, it takes some time to figure out what that looks like on a practical level, but I'm so grateful to have grown up in an environment like that.

What was the pressure on being the youngest of three?

Most of the pressure was coming from me instead of from the outside in.

My parents were never...

they just wanted us to do our best and to glorify God, and then, you know, when you mess up and keep going.

That's intriguing.

You moved from Amarillo to Indiana at one point with your parents.

What was that like?

I had graduated high school, and I was actually living with one of my dad's older sisters here, because they had...

my dad, my mom, and one of my sisters were already in Indiana, and I was finishing up my first year of college.

At that time, I was an English major.

I didn't know where I wanted to go, so I was like, this is a great time to do it, because I had the scholarship to go anywhere stateside in the U.S. that had federal funding.

So I was like, I might as well just try something new and finish up in Indiana.

That scholarship came about because of your sports skill set, yeah?

This one was actually not sports related.

This one was the Gates Millennium Scholarship.

So it was like a...

the application process, I think, was about eight or nine essays, and then I had like a nominator and recommender, fortunately, at my high school who was willing to work with me, who was also my English teacher, so she also helped me with like the editing process and cleaning up my writing.

I was able to finish up my undergrad without having to take on any loans or anything like that.

Oh, congratulations!

Wow, that's a big accomplishment, yeah?

Have you written a book just yet?

I have not, but it is definitely something that I have always wanted to do.

What would you write on?

I've noticed as I've gotten older, there are a lot of people who genuinely love the Lord, but they're dealing with certain issues, certain areas where they haven't seen as much victory as the Lord would like them to see, and a lot of it has to do with like issues of the soul, emotional pain, traumas, and that sort of thing.

So if the Lord allows, I would really like to help people work through that sort of thing.

Have you had a similar situation?

For me, I always wanted to serve the Lord as far back as I can remember, and I remember, I think one of my first experiences with heartbreak and with shame and with condemnation, I had visited a friend.

Now mind you, she wasn't that much older than me, but parents can't be everywhere at once, and had actually been shown pornography unexpectedly, was like eight years old, didn't know there was a name for it, didn't know it was a common thing, and I remember thinking, oh God, I've ruined it.

And so I think that was my first kind of the open door for dealing with a lot of condemnation as a young woman, probably throughout.

I would say I could definitely see signs of it, and even like social anxiety and that sort of thing in middle school and high school.

And so from that point on, I mean like when I would talk to God in private, literally the whole conversation was forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, you know, and I didn't know how to receive the love of God, and I didn't know how common that sort of thing was.

Well I guess the gate really represents an open gate or a closed gate, yeah, to the forgiveness or even the grace that God gives.

Yeah, so I can remember like seeing or reading about God's love for other people, but it was very difficult for a while for me to receive it for myself, because it was like, okay, I grew up in a Christian home, so I should have known, you know what I mean?

There was a beating myself up internally.

Yeah, so are you thinking about that book being for really the people of the church because of what could be overlooked as Christians, for us as Christians experiencing?

If I were led to, you know, that would be my target audience, I think it would be good because I've, as I see my parents do ministry, see like my dad's two brothers are also in ministry, just in different places, there are so many people who they genuinely love the Lord, but it's almost like they're living within that place of trauma.

It's like they can't get past it.

Yeah, tell me about your other healing journey as well, the miracle.

Yes, so very early on I started developing symptoms of lupus.

I had just a lot of difficulty with the sunlight, and at that time I had broken out in certain places like with a scaly rash, and the doctor really didn't know what was going on.

So by the time I

got to middle school, I was dealing with a lot of joint pain all the time, but

because it started so early, I would think, oh well, you know, this is just

sports related, it was a difficult practice, etc., and then when I, in South

Bend, Indiana, when I hit 21, that's when the, I think it was probably a lot of it

had to do with the stress of like moving and getting settled there on top of

doing college full-time, that's when some of the pain, the fatigue, and frequent

infections and stuff kind of snowballed, and then my uncle suggested, you know,

well I'm gonna call a doctor who, she was actually a member of our church there, so

I went to see her, and I had so many irregularities in my blood work that she

said, okay, I'm gonna send you to my colleague, she was from Nigeria, her

colleague was a hematologist oncologist from Liberia, and that's when he's like,

okay, you shouldn't have, you're 21, you shouldn't have this many irregularities,

so between that time and this time, that was, let's see, 2011, when we got

a diagnosis of, okay, it's something autoimmune going on here, between that

time and this time, I mean, it's night and day as far as how far the Lord has

brought me, the normal things that I can do again, I take much, much less

medication, so, but it's been, the Lord told me very early on, you're gonna walk

through this kind of like the lepers that healed as they went, so my journey

has been the same way.

What's on the horizon for you, Marissa?

What is on the horizon?

So, I actually currently work as a literacy tutor, I do that online, and I really, really enjoy it, just anything having to do with writing or reading, and I just got certified to teach English, English as a second language, so I really want to, I want to keep tutoring, but I also want to branch out and teach English to speakers of other languages.

On the horizon has growth, you're traveling and transitioning through your health, but you're so excited, what would you say to the person that's listening, that's in a similar place, as to how they can just endure what they're experiencing?

I would say, try not to think too far ahead, just get through right now, and

then feast on the word, spend time with the Lord, because that should always be

your priority, but as you do that, literally, it, it settles you down, and

then the Lord, he doesn't just, because he's always interested in the whole

person, so he will deal with like, if there's underlying emotional issues,

mental challenges, family issues, he is always working on the whole person, so I

would say, focus on your relationship with God, and then really the, the hope

that you need, kind of comes automatically after that.

Marissa Parker, thank you for passing by, it's a pleasure, I treasure, thank you for being on What is Inspired by 12 Minute Converse.