My Story.

My name is Courtney. Before I tell you about my life, there is something I want you to know: you are not alone. Whatever brought you here, whatever you may be carrying quietly, I hope my story gives you a reason to keep going.

For a long time, I thought making something of my life meant having something to show for it. I dreamed big, worked hard, and cared deeply about people. But I also wanted to prove that I mattered. For nearly a decade, I pursued business and money with an intensity that left little room for my emotional or spiritual health.

From the outside, I was building a successful life. Privately, I was struggling to feel worthy of it.

The need to prove myself

As a child, I often felt like the least capable person in the classroom. Reading was difficult. I struggled to understand what was on the page, and reading aloud made me painfully aware of that struggle.

Studying languages, particularly Latin, helped me begin to trust my own ability to learn. It gave me confidence in a part of myself I had almost given up on.

Still, the feeling that I had something to prove stayed with me.

I was tall, skinny, awkward, and unsure of where I belonged. I rarely felt chosen. I wanted friendship, but I did not feel that I had found genuine connection until later in college.

Long before then, grief had become part of my life.

My sister died when I was fourteen. At eighteen, I lost my family home and everything I owned. During that period, I briefly lost the ability to walk. Months later, my father died.

Even now, I struggle to explain what those losses did to me. I was young, and I did not know how to carry so much sorrow. There were times when I questioned why I had been born.

I kept moving, but moving forward was not the same as healing.

Building a life I hoped would be enough

In college, I found friends who became collaborators. Together, we developed and sold a program that allowed a phone to unlock based on the positioning of key points on its lock-screen image.

After my exit from PicPac/MarCo, I had more money than I had ever imagined having. I was grateful for what we had accomplished. Yet the financial success did not settle the questions I had carried since childhood.

I still felt driven to do more. I still struggled to believe that what I had done, or who I was, could be enough.

I founded Venture Beyond as I began confronting that unhealthy pursuit. I also established a partner-funded nonprofit, the Courtney Jordan Group, to help address poverty at the community level through education and youth development.

We offered cultural excursions, immersive educational camps, and programs designed to help young people grow beyond the demands of a test. I wanted them to have opportunities to discover their abilities, explore their interests, and feel valued.

That work mattered to me. It still does.

But serving others also brought me face to face with something I had avoided in myself.

Learning to be honest with God

My faith taught me to care for people, and I believed I was honoring that responsibility through my work. Often, though, I approached God with a list of what I had done rather than an honest account of how I was doing.

I could speak about the people we were helping more easily than I could admit that I needed help.

Over time, I began to understand how much of my identity depended on achievement, generosity, and being needed. I had made room for the work of faith without giving the same attention to my relationship with God.

Learning to pray honestly meant admitting that I was grieving, angry, and exhausted. It meant coming to God without an accomplishment to offer.

That was difficult for me. It was also where healing began.

Facing what success could not fix

There were other painful chapters. I survived kidnapping and extortion. I experienced heartbreak and betrayal by people I trusted. At one point, I was placed on life support.

There were periods when I struggled to see a reason to keep living.

I do not share those experiences lightly. Nor do I want to suggest that I handled them with constant courage or grace. Pain affected the way I saw people and the way I treated them. I became bitter. I made choices I regret.

Acknowledging what happened to me has been important. So has taking responsibility for what I did with the hurt.

My walk with God has helped me face both.

I am still learning how to live without constantly defending my worth. I am learning to accept love, to ask for help, and to recognize when an old wound is shaping a present decision.

I cannot honestly describe every loss as a blessing. I miss the people I have lost. There are experiences I wish had never happened. But I can be grateful for the life I have now without pretending the suffering was easy or necessary.

Why I am sharing this

I once believed that telling my story meant showing how far I had risen. Today, I would rather tell it honestly.

I have achieved things I am proud of. I have also been frightened, lonely, wrong, and deeply in need of grace. My faith has become more personal as I have become more willing to admit those things.

If you are in a difficult place, I will not pretend to know exactly how you feel. I only know how convincing hopelessness can become when you have been hurting for a long time.

Please do not feel that you have to carry it silently. You deserve care and companionship before you have found the words to explain everything.

For me, hope returned gradually. Sometimes it was simply a willingness to see what the next day might hold. Sometimes it was an honest prayer when I had nothing else to say.

I still have big dreams. I still want to build things and help people. But I no longer want the life I build to come at the expense of the person living it.

My name is Courtney. I am grateful to be here, still growing in faith, still learning to receive love, and still discovering how much life there is left to live.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

C.S. Lewis