Homeless and hopeless.

That’s how Savannah Whitaker felt only months before opening World Pulse Fest 2016 with her original song, “Blameless.” Standing on the stage before thousands of concert-goers was a girl who had once given up on life.

Much like the lyrics in the songs she writes, Whitaker’s story is one of hope and redemption, seeking “truth” and finding strength in “the least of these.” How this young believer went from living in her car to becoming the Pulse FM Rising Star 2016 winner, she says, can only be attributed to one thing: God.

Whitaker’s life seemed completely normal to her, growing up in a devout Christian family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her parents and younger sister.

At age 8, however, everything changed when she learned she was adopted. That news changed the trajectory of her life, and started her down a path that would take nearly two decades to finally overcome.

“I was very confused and started the search of acceptance, which led me down a path of habitual lying,” Whitaker said. “I didn’t understand the truth — ‘little t’ — or the ‘big T,’ the gospel. The Truth just didn’t mean anything to me.”

Having grown up heavily involved in her church, Whitaker had all the right answers when it came to reciting Bible passages or Sunday school lessons. What she lacked was what she refers to as, “heart knowledge.”

“We’re 18 inches from eternity, so everybody has got this head knowledge, but the lack of heart belief is critical,” Whitaker said.

Whitaker began playing piano, which she still says is her favorite instrument, at the age of 6. In college she picked up the guitar and hasn’t put it down since.

“I love music. It’s a way people can connect without speaking,” Whitaker said. “When you don’t have the words to say, there are usually words in the song that can say them for you.”

Along with her love for music, Whitaker has a passion for soccer. She practiced, played and eventually became the first freshman on her varsity team, where she started getting recognized by Division I and II colleges. She broke some records in high school and found herself playing Division I soccer at the University of Kansas.

The people in her hometown knew her as a great athlete, but in her music, she describes herself as a “lying, son of gun, dirty rotten sinner, who didn’t know the grace of the Lord, repentance, or the love the Lord had for me.”

Unfortunately for Whitaker, the life choices she made, got her kicked off the team and she lost her scholarship. After going home to regroup she got the opportunity to play Division II in Texas. Once again, she started down her now well-worn path of lying, until she had to leave school again and return home to New Mexico.

Suffocating from the weight of the web of lies she had woven, Whitaker decided she wanted to get involved in ministry, and sought the guidance of her pastor. Through an internship placement, she found herself at the Nappanee Missionary church in 2014, for what was supposed to be a 14-week program.

This is where the downward spiral, and her ultimate salvation, began.

While participating in her internship, Whitaker lied her way into — and out of — a few jobs and a few more places to live. She began building friendships based on even more lies, and relied on these lies to make the choices that led her to finding herself living behind Best Buy, in Mishawaka, Indiana, for three days.

While living in yet another temporary housing situation, Whitaker received a call from a mutual friend, Debbie Majerek Shirrell, to come house-sit for her while she and her husband went to Arizona for a few weeks at Thanksgiving, in November 2015.

“I didn’t know she was homeless,” Shirrell said. “But I did realize she was going place to place. I really felt she needed a place to get away from everybody.”

Whitaker has been living with the Shirrell family since.

When the Shirrells went to Florida for the winter, Whitaker stayed in their home and found herself in the midst of a lie, so big and so profound, it could have been very damaging.

“It would have shaken the community and really done some damage to one of the top male Christian artists in the world,” Whitaker said.

This lie, the stories, all the fabricated details of the life she wasn’t really living had finally caught up with her. When she finally showed up at 3 p.m. on Jan. 22, 2016, for the 11 a.m. meeting she had scheduled with Natalee Wintek, and her pastor, she planned to admit to the lie, but couldn’t do it. She left that meeting not having solved anything, but knowing she couldn’t continue on living her life in this manner.

“I remember thinking, ‘I don’t even know who I am anymore. I am done with life,’” Whitaker said. “I was literally given two options: humble myself before the Lord or suicide. I chose suicide.”

She wrote a note and planned for Wintek to find her the next day.

In spite of her plan, she woke up on Jan. 23, 2016, to pounding on her door.

“At this point everyone knew of my lie, but they still wanted to spend time and talk to me. I had so many opportunities to humble myself. I had finally hit my head smack on the cross,” Whitaker said.

She had no recollection of what happened in the 16 hours between her pointless meeting and her friends pounding on her door, but she did know she was saved. She began to repent all of her sins, especially the lies she had been telling for nearly two decades.

“I still fall short,” she says. “Right away on the 23rd my life took a crazy journey by being faithful to the Lord, and being very obedient, blessing after blessing started coming my way. I won Rising Star. I got to open for Pulse Fest.”

Whitaker gives all the credit to the turn-around of her life to her belief, her salvation, and the hands of God working through her mentor Wintek and her friend Shirrell.

“I was committed to suicide on the 22nd, but the Lord woke me up so my purpose is not done here. That was the moment I knew it was ‘go’ time,” Whitaker said.

Since winning Rising Star, performing at World Pulse Fest, finding a friendship in Shirrell and a bond with Wintek, she has rebuilt her tarnished relationship with her parents, and is on the path that has been chosen for her, working with the youth through Hope Ministries in South Bend.

“I get to see the Lord’s work in these kids’ lives every single day at the Hope Ministries,” Whitaker said.

Hope is a transitional housing program that provides core classes to parents who abuse drugs, provides families with two hot meals a day and, according to Whitaker, “shows them the way the Lord can work.”

“It’s a phenomenal ministry that is so fruitful. They get plugged into a church before they leave, so they aren’t put back into the world without a community,” Whitaker said.

At Hope, she works with the kids in afterschool programs and goes to school to have lunch with them. She works with the school-aged students to develop social skills and walk them through different scenarios in life.

“They are so angry, and rightfully so,” she said. “Their emotions are valid. I allow them to really feel their emotions instead of telling them to not feel the way they do. I want them to be able to feel that emotion in that moment so they can really feel how they feel.”

Whitaker has found a home at Hope, a place she feels she has been brought to because that is where she should be, and Wintek agrees.

“I admire her unconditional love for the ‘least of these,’ those that typically go unnoticed, or who are abandoned. I admire the joy that she brings to the families, especially the children at Hope Ministries,” Wintek said. “I admire her continued relentless pursuit of Jesus and [how she] only wants to give Him the praise without giving herself any recognition.”

In her free time, Whitaker is busy writing and recording original music, performing whenever she possibly can, and sharing the word of God through her music with anyone who will listen. She sees herself settling down and having a family in the next five to 10 years.

“I would love to have a family, to have a couple acres of land somewhere where I can build a campsite just for kids from the inner-city who feel like they need to run, get out, learn about the Lord, plant some seeds and give them an escape when they feel like they can’t escape their world,” Whitaker said.

Shirrell would like to see Whitaker’s life continue down the new path she has embarked upon, where she can continue to bless people with her music.

“There is nothing better than her voice and her guitar,” she said.

Wintek said she couldn’t agree more.

“It doesn’t matter what she is doing, she will continue to be a beacon of light to everyone around her,” she said.

The future of this bright shining star is yet to be determined, though one thing seems certain, as the lyrics in her contest-winning song, “Blameless” promise, she has “decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.”