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The journey to becoming popular "Girls Gone Bible" podcasters wasn't always smooth, co-hosts Angela Halili and Arielle Reitsma told a packed crowd of Grand Canyon University students as they shared what brought them to God.
“Maybe you did grow up in a Christian home, maybe you didn't,” Halili told students at Chapel on Monday at Global Credit Union Arena. “But the truth is, whether you did or didn't, your faith eventually has to become your own.
“Your faith eventually has to become something that you choose and that you say, ‘no, this is a relationship, not a religion, that I'm going to pursue with all my heart.’”
Since starting in 2023, "Girls Gone Bible" has attracted 1.1 million followers on Instagram, 877,000 subscribers on YouTube and nearly 814,000 followers on TikTok.
Halili and Reitsma, who set aside time to meet with more than 100 students after Chapel, shared how they gained their faith after hitting some of the lowest points in their lives.
“I didn't cry out to Jesus,” Halili said. “I didn't ask Him for help, but God knew what I needed, and He never left me. He never forsakes me, regardless of how my life looked.”
Halili grew up in a family in which only her mother, who was Catholic, was religious. She dealt with anxiety as a teenager and described herself as an alcoholic at 23, adding that Satan promises something that he never delivers for the sick.
“I know there are so many people in this room, who you probably look in the mirror and you say, ‘How did I get here? How do I have this sin or this addiction that probably nobody knows about?’
“I want you to know that I've been there. I've been at the end of myself, wondering, how could I get to this place?”
It took an introduction from her mother to a 70-year-old man with a long gray beard who she referred to as Socrates. He would pray for her and her anxiety.
“Socrates prophesies over me the first time he ever meets me and says, ‘You are a mighty woman of God, and you're going to speak on stages about Jesus, and you're going to evangelize to millions.’“
Halili thought Socrates was mistaken, but for the first time in her life, “Somebody looked at me the way the Lord looks at us – not as who we are in our mess and in our brokenness – but in who we will become when we give our lives to Him and truly let the Holy Spirit transform us. And so Him speaking that life into me changed me.
“And then He prayed for me every single day for six months that I would get sober, that I would be free from anxiety. And He read the Scriptures to me and over me, and I started to pray for myself. And six months of prayer led to one moment of supernatural deliverance.”
Thanksgiving will mark Halili’s seven-year anniversary of sobriety, a feat she appreciates, thanks to God’s willingness to help everyone.
“You've got to let your will go and invite the Lord's will into your life,” Halili said. “And one of the most important things that I've learned in being a believer is that I'm meant to surrender my will completely.”
Reitsma grew up with no faith in her family while coping with a parent battling depression and virtually raising her younger sister.
She moved from her native Massachusetts to California at 18 with “big dreams” in hopes of helping her family.
“I was just constantly looking for identity and peace and safety and all these things, and I would look for it in relationships, in people, in my career,” Reitsma recalled. “But there's only so far you can run, and the love of God will not let you live in survival mode your whole life.
“And oftentimes, it's out of the love of God where He will let you hit a wall.”
Reitsma recalled being so emotionally sick that she struggled to walk from her bed to her shower, suffering from heartbreak and anguish.
“God literally met me on my bathroom floor, and He saw me, and He loved me, and He was patient with me, and He helped me,” Reitsma said. “And that's why I can sit up here and preach to all you guys.”
Reitsma drew parallels between her experience and that of the woman in Mark 5:25 who had been bleeding chronically for 12 years, had been told by numerous doctors she couldn’t be healed, couldn’t perform mundane duties and was deemed unworthy.
The woman rushes through thousands of people to grab the hem of Jesus’ garment, prompting Him to ask who had touched him while en route to healing Jairus’ daughter. The woman became healed immediately.
“When I think about this moment when He was on the way and He looked and He stopped for the one, it makes me think: How much more do we need to stop for the one?” Reitsma said.
Reitsma adds that this generation is absorbed by self-consumption, particularly on social media, when God wants us to be alert and be at the hands and feet of Jesus.
“Real ministry is being in the dirt with people, helping people and being alert,” Reitsma said. “And so when He bends down to this woman, He calls her daughter, looks at her and says, 'Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.'”
Reitsma adds: “I've only been saved for a little over three years, but I can preach to you guys because I have seen Jesus. I have seen the love of Jesus. And let me tell you something: You don't need to clean yourself up. He does the cleaning up for you.”
After raising a Bible, Reitsma referenced “life and death is in the power of the tongue" from Proverbs 18:21.
“How are you guys speaking to yourself?" Reitsma asked. "That when you set yourself apart, when you gave your life to Jesus and He set you apart, He literally calls you His royal priesthood. That you are a son of God. That you don't need to walk around feeling unworthy and rejected anymore.
“You can walk with authority because you are called and chosen, and you are set apart to Him. So I want to just leave you with this: My whole life I have spoken death over myself. Stop. Literally, life or death is in the power of your tongue. Walk like it. Speak like it. Walk in the authority that He called you to be.”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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Next Chapel speaker: Terry Mackey, Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church Pastor, 11 a.m. Oct. 26, Global Credit Union Arena
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