The following commentary is an excerpt from remarks presented before the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission on Sept. 8, 2025, with minor edits made only for readability.

I was in third grade at a public school in Simpson County, Mississippi, when schools reopened during the Covid-19 pandemic. That year was hard for everyone. We had to wear face masks all day, keep our distance, and things didn’t feel normal. But I found something that gave me comfort — my favorite face mask. It was black with hot pink letters that had three simple words on it: “Jesus Loves Me.”

For me, those words meant something really special. As a Christian, I believe Jesus loves all of us. And He’s always with us, especially when life is scary or confusing.

During that time, everything felt uncertain. Those three simple words reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I was deeply loved, and I hoped it might remind others of that, too.

At first, I wore it to school without any problems. Other kids were wearing masks with words and logos on them. Students had masks with sports team logos and a “Black Lives Matter” logo, for example.

But one day in October, my computer lab teacher told me I wasn’t allowed to wear my favorite mask anymore because it had words on it. I was really sad and confused — sad because I loved the reminder that Jesus was with me always, just as the Bible says, but also confused because I didn’t know why the school was telling me not to wear it. I’d worn it many times since school started.

When my mom picked me up from school that day, I told her what had happened. As wise moms do, she didn’t get angry. She got curious.

That night and the rest of the week, she read every school policy, the school handbook, and school directives on Covid, but she couldn’t find anything saying that masks with words weren’t allowed. She talked to other parents and even asked some staff. No one had heard of such a rule.

So we thought it was just a misunderstanding and that my teacher was confused. My mom said it was OK to wear my “Jesus Loves Me” mask again.

But a few days later, I’ll never forget what happened.

Right before lunch, a school official pulled me aside and told me to quickly take off my mask before the other kids got to lunch so that “no one would see.” I was so embarrassed and hurt. The school official made me feel like I’d done something wrong.

When I got in my mom’s car that afternoon, I told her that the school told me my mask was against the rules. She assured me that I didn’t do anything wrong and that we’d work through this together.

I found out that, earlier that day, the school principal had called my mom to say that the student handbook prevented “religious or political things on masks at school.” But when my mom asked to see the rule in the handbook, the principal couldn’t find it.

Later that afternoon, my mom sent an email to the school district about the mask policy. The assistant superintendent called her. He said that the rule about no words on masks wasn’t in the handbook, but that the district’s Covid Restart Plan did prohibit masks with “political, religious, sexual or inappropriate statements.” He then emailed a copy to my mom.

But when my mom compared the document he sent with the plan on the school district’s website, they weren’t the same. The sentence about religious statements on masks was nowhere to be found in the Covid Restart Plan on the school’s website.

To my mom’s greater shock, she discovered in the metadata that the emailed version had been modified right before the assistant superintendent called her. My mom realized that this man had altered the original plan to stop me from wearing a mask that said “Jesus Loves Me.”

That’s when we knew this wasn’t just about a mask. The school was violating my rights.

So, with God’s direction and the help of some amazing people at Alliance Defending Freedom, my family and I took a stand and filed a lawsuit against the school district.

Thankfully, the school soon agreed to allow me to wear my “Jesus Loves Me” mask again, but it never admitted it had violated my religious freedom. And it took over two years before the district finally settled the case, agreeing to protect all students’ right to express their faith.

I was only 9 years old when this happened. But through it all, I learned something I’ll never forget: You’re never too young for your voice to matter.

If I had stayed silent, nothing would’ve changed. But because we spoke up, now other students can wear messages of faith and love without fear of being silenced. Isaiah 7:9 says, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”

It was intimidating at times, facing that harassment. But I’ve come to know that doing the right thing isn’t always easy, and God can use even something as small as my mask to help ensure our amazing country remains free.