Content warning: This article references suicidal ideation.

Where did you grow up, and what first got you interested in studying theology and ministry?
I grew up in a little town called Reedsburg, Wisconsin. My childhood was very normal—until it wasn’t.
In third grade my mom got a job teaching GED courses at a men’s prison. My mom fell in love with an inmate. My parents divorced, and every other Saturday when I was with my mom, we were in the prison visitation room. At age 10, I was a flower girl in my mom’s prison chapel wedding. Even during great turmoil in my family, I remember several faith-formation seasons. First, as a young child, telling the Catholic nuns in my Sunday School class I wanted to be a priest. They kindly suggested I retarget that aspiration. Then, as my mom’s choices brought her the pain of losing her job, her family, and her friends, I saw her reading her Bible. It was blue. The cover said The Way. I enjoyed paging through it and feeling calm as I held it in my hands. Third, I remember my dad’s faithfulness in getting me to church every Sunday. He would sit in the pew and close his eyes. In great embarrassment I would elbow him and tell him to wake up. “I’m just resting my eyes” was always his response. In eighth grade, my mom’s husband was getting out of prison. My dad and I moved three hours away. That was the end of joint custody. Deep sadness set in, and I tried to take my life. By the grace of God and many unnamed people hitting their knees for me, I not only lived but began to flourish. I graduated from high school, then college with a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I became Miss Wisconsin and traveled the state talking with kids about overcoming crisis. After going to Miss America and finishing my year as Miss Wisconsin, I became a television news anchor and married the boy of my dreams.

I had everything I had ever wanted, but I brought the trauma of my childhood into my adulthood. I was on the edge of what anyone would call an alcoholic. Life felt passionless and pointless. I filled myself with food, drinks, cigarettes, shopping, and idle gossip. At this time, a friend invited me to my first Bible study. Let me pause and remind you I was raised in the church. I knew all the songs, all the promises. I just didn’t think they were for me. My husband and I even knew the importance of getting our own kids to church, so we joined Hope Lutheran, an ELCA congregation, in Fargo, North Dakota.

In 2011, I sat in a friend’s living room with two women and learned two things that changed my life. First, I am a child of God. I am not chained to the things people called me or my family in my childhood. Second, God has big plans for my life—I hadn’t reached my peak at age 22 when I was Miss Wisconsin or was being admired for being on TV. I asked my friend how I could move forward with all of this. “Pray,” she said. “Pray every morning and every night, ‘God make me a vessel for you.’” So I did. A few months later, the publisher of a newspaper called and asked if I would consider writing a column for his paper. What could I possibly write about that would be even remotely interesting, I asked myself. On a rare hot summer day in Fargo, I dragged myself and my kids to the community pool, where a teenage mom taught me a secret that changed my life: Kindness isn’t about “them,” it’s about “us.” The life we transform with kindness is our own. So I began writing a weekly column called Kindness Is Contagious. People from the community sent in their stories of kindness. Taking my eyes off myself and putting them on other people changed me. Within one year, I had quit drinking, quit smoking, lost 30 pounds, re-fell in love with my husband, and recognized Jesus walking alongside me.

I wrote the Kindness column for ten years, and it became my first two books and launched a speaking career. Life was so good. Then in 2015, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I got to prove the power of kindness when I began using it as a form of therapy to get out of bed each day. Kindness and cancer taught me that pain and joy exist simultaneously. Always. When we pray, we put our hands together and bring both the pain and the joy to God.

What led you to pursuing theological education here at Luther Seminary?
For nearly ten years, the idea of seminary floated in and out of my mind. In 2020, the nudge to go to seminary grew stronger. I went as far as talking with a former pastor at Bethlehem Lutheran, our ELCA congregation in Aberdeen, South Dakota. As we talked, I explained my longing for answers. She smiled and said that’s why she went to seminary, too. Then she explained that seminary is a place to discover more questions, not necessarily more answers. When I found out about the Jubilee Scholarship at Luther Seminary it was as if God was saying, “I know you love confirmation, Nic. Here you go. The doors are wide open.”

What degree program are you in at Luther Seminary, and what are you hoping to do with your seminary education?
I graduated recently with my M.Div. degree. I have decided not to pursue ordination for many reasons, but my time in both the Word and Sacrament and Word and Service tracks allowed me the incredible blessing of trying out several career paths. I got to serve two beautiful congregations in rural South Dakota as a Synodically Authorized Minister, and I worked as a chaplain at Avera St. Luke’s Hospital in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

I am a professional speaker and workshop leader and love helping people navigate personal and professional pressure more effectively by teaching them ways to interrupt negative thought patterns. My personal faith drives my mission to help people love each other better, but it’s my Luther education that has trained me how to love others better. Even as a distributed learner, I was able to make new friends from around the world. The books my professors assigned challenged me to broaden my perspective. Discussing readings with classmates further challenged my old narratives. It’s hard to have what you’ve always known to be “true” turned on its head, but that’s what was especially powerful about my education at Luther Seminary. Not a single professor allowed me to sit in my beliefs without asking, “Is there another way to see this?”

What’s one thing people don’t know about you?
I’m a sucker for wacky experiences. I won a car on The Price Is Right, dragged my family onto an episode of HGTV’s House Hunters, and got eliminated in a game of dodgeball in a Mr. Beast video, and most recently hung out with Ryan Seacrest and Vanna White while solving puzzles on Wheel of Fortune.