Alumni Profile: Jessica Florey '20

When talking with Jessica Florey ’20, it is evident that she has a deep love for Covenant College. In her words, “If Covenant is the best gift God has given me (apart from my salvation), then I have received the greatest gift of all.” Jessica, better known to the Covenant community as Jflo, is pursuing her master’s from the University of Louisville while also working as a full-time teacher. 

Jflo knew Covenant was where she belonged after visiting. While on a mission trip to Chattanooga, her youth pastor, a Covenant alumnus, brought the students to Covenant’s campus, and that’s when her love for the college began. She says that years later, when she returned to campus for Scholarship Weekend, she almost forgot she was a high school student because she already felt like part of the Covenant community. In the fall of 2016, Jflo packed her bags and moved from Brentwood, TN to Lookout Mountain, GA.

Coming from a public high school, the experience of living and working in a biblical community was new for Jflo. Deep, intentional conversations about what it means to be a faithful believer filled her time at Covenant. “It was at Covenant that I learned that my faith affects every aspect of my life,” she says. In each class, she was challenged to more fully understand the impact of “In All Things Christ Preeminent.” She says, “I came into college with a deserving mindset, but I left with a posture of humility, seeing everything in my life as a gift that God does not owe to me, but he gives to me freely.”

Jflo is now enrolled in the Teach Kentucky program, where she is learning the skills of an educator and putting them to practice in the classroom. The past year has been a hard one, she says openly. Working in a lower-income school brings its own challenges, and on top of that, she’s had to navigate the pandemic while early in her teaching career. However, Jflo uses her job as an opportunity to show Christ to her students. She comments, “I find new purpose in serving my students because of the daily reminder of what Christ has done for me in the service of laying down his life for me.”

Involvement in a local church has long been a significant part of Jflo’s life, from her home church in Brentwood to her church in Chattanooga to her new church in Louisville. Covenant further taught her how essential the church community is in a believer’s life, and she is experiencing that in new ways now that she is out of college. She says that Immanuel Baptist in Louisville has been vital for her since making her home in Louisville.

Jflo encourages current and future Covenant Scots to soak in the college season. “I know things can be stressful, but college is a time you will never get back. See the gifts God has given you and soak in these gifts now; the next season will come.”