The back cover of Tristan Kelly's Bible has
fallen off. The pages of the Bible are dog-eared
and crumpled — but so far none of them have
suffered the same fate as the unfortunate back
cover. They are intact, at least for now.
Some of them are coffee stained. Most of them contain notes he has jotted or highlighting of some kind. It's easy to see that this is a well-loved book.
"I have not upgraded because I don't think I have the heart to," Kelly says. "My heart just can't give it up. It means the world to me...There's nothing better when you see a bunch of color in the pages, because you know that you've read that before, you've looked at it, you've thought about it, you've taken something away."
For Kelly, who just completed his junior year at Union, that red Bible, despite its deterioration and decay, symbolizes what God has done for him. He's used it for classes and for personal reading. And God has used it, and the people at Union, to transform Kelly's life.
Kelly came to Union from Northern
Ireland as a cross-country runner. He
describes his upbringing as "secular
Catholic," where religion is more of
a cultural identity than a personal
one. He knew of God but didn't have
any kind of relationship with him.
Instead, Kelly's life focused on running. Soccer was his first love, and he started running as a means of conditioning for soccer. But running quickly became the greater priority. As he began considering colleges where he could run cross-country, he interacted with many coaches whose main concern was his running time.
He found something different in Bailey Bell, Union's cross-country coach.
"At the end of your four years, I don't care how you performed athletically," Bell told him. "I care about how you've grown as a person."
That perspective appealed to Kelly. He committed to Union, even though he had no idea what Jackson was like or what Union was like. He had never even been to the United States before he moved onto campus for the fall semester of his freshman year.
One of his roommates and cross-country teammates was Micah Winn, a home schooled pastor's kid from Durham, North Carolina.
"First impressions were that I could not understand half of what he was saying," Winn says of Kelly and his Irish accent.
They butted heads over simple things — like Kelly's frequent profanity — and the vast cultural differences sometimes caused friction in the relationship.
"But Micah always pursued me,"
Kelly says. "He didn't let moments
to pour into me pass by him."
"I loved church, and I loved talking about the Bible, and he did not know anything about it," Winn says. "I was asking him a lot of questions. He jokes now and calls me 'Pastor Mike' some. I would ask these questions about his faith or about the way he grew up."
In Winn and others at Union, Kelly encountered genuine Christianity that intrigued him, at least at first. But he soon found himself dealing with personal issues and trauma — the death of his grandfather, the breakup with a girlfriend, a stress fracture in his foot, poor racing performances — that left him embittered.
"I think he started to question a lot of things about what running really meant and how to put your worth in something bigger than running," Bell says.
When Kelly returned to campus in the spring of his freshman year, he wanted nothing to do with God. He'd sit through chapel services in anger and frustration, waiting impatiently for them to end.
The main issue was his self-described hard-headedness and rebellion against God.
His teammates continued to invest in him, however, and pushed him to consider the gospel — the good news that Jesus saves sinners. He was required to read the Bible in his Old Testament and New Testament survey classes.
Winn had given Kelly a Bible early in his time at Union, but Kelly picked up another copy — the red English Standard Version — when he visited Cornerstone Community Church one Sunday. He liked the ESV better because that was what his professors were using in his classes.
He began reading it earnestly and asking questions about passages in books such as Romans. The troubles and conflicts in his mind started to fade. He began attending Calvary Baptist Church in Jackson regularly where he was receiving spiritual nourishment.
At the end of the spring semester, as he was boarding his flight home to Ireland, he felt a sense of peace in his heart because he understood and believed the gospel. That summer, as he was visiting with friends in a night club, he remembers telling himself that he didn't need alcohol anymore.
"I don't need something external to give me satisfaction, because I have this newfound appreciation in my heart because of God's redeeming love," Kelly says.
As the summer progressed, he couldn't wait to return to Jackson and tell Ryan O'Neal, the college minister at Calvary, about the change in his life and that he wanted to be baptized.
"He's never been the same since
he's given his life to Christ," O'Neal
says. "His demeanor, his words and
his actions are so others oriented."
Kelly continued to grow in his faith during his sophomore year. The following summer, he went to Salt Lake City, Utah, to work with Christ Fellowship, a church planted by Union alumni Timothy and Haley O'Day and Zach and Courtney Thompson.
"I think for me, it was the fulfillment of the Great Commission in the sense that God had broken me down, and he had built me back up again," Kelly says. "I had learned the Scripture, and then it was me going out and sharing the gospel. It was beautiful."
An exercise science major with a minor in Christian studies, Kelly isn't entirely sure what he wants to do after he graduates from Union in May of 2025. He's thinking about pursuing a master's degree in athletic training. He does know that he wants to go where the Lord's work needs to be done.
For now, Kelly continues running. He clocks about 65–70 miles per week.
"I want to make sure that I can cross the finish line in my last race here and say I've given it my all," he says. "Running is something that is finite. I cannot run forever, but I will have this relationship (with God) forever. If I'm not bringing glory to him in running, I'm not running well."
Wherever his path leads after graduation, Kelly will depart from Union with gratitude.
"I've never found a place that invests in the people, the students, as much as the professors and the staff here," he says. "And that's what I've loved about this place."
He'll also depart with a red, coverless Bible — a Bible that has renewed his mind, changed his heart and stoked his affections for the Lord. It may not be pretty on the outside, but it's a priceless treasure to Kelly.
"It's just a reminder of the amount of hours that I've spent in this Bible," he says. "This is two and a half years of how God pursued me."
