Bekah Lagafuaina on Finding Her Own Faith and Keeping Room for Old Friends
BrotherLee Time Episode #95 | Guest: Elijah & Bekah Lagafuaina | Format: Narrative Feature
At 21, Bekah Lagafuaina was sitting in a booth at V Lounge with friends about five years older than her. She remembers being a little intoxicated and looking around when a thought came to her: “If you look at your friends, you’ll see your future.”
At the time, she did not know what to make of the voice in her mind. Looking back, she says she understands it as God speaking to her. She pictured the lives her friends were living and imagined what hers might look like if she kept following the same path. She says that moment stopped everything.
Bekah was not describing her friends as bad people. She speaks about them now with affection and respect. But in that moment she could see that she did not want to be in the same club five years later, still looking for attention and trying to become someone else. As she put it, she had not been addicted to a substance, but she had been addicted to partying and attention.
In Episode 95 of the BrotherLee Time Podcast, Bekah reflects on what it took to recognize the person she wanted to become, and what happened to the friendships she stepped away from along the way.
Looking for an identity that felt like her own
Bekah grew up in a family closely connected to church. Her parents, Pastor Mike and Pastor Lisa, built a life in ministry, and she was a pastor’s kid. She says that for a long time she did not want Jesus or church. She wanted to be like everybody else, partly because being a pastor’s kid could feel different from the lives her friends were living.
She remembers looking at girls she thought were gorgeous and wanting to dress like them, attract the same attention, and be more like them. The more she tried to copy those lives, the further she felt from knowing who she was. Her turning point at V Lounge gave her a picture of where that search could lead, but it did not answer every question for her.
When asked what she would tell her younger self, Bekah said, “Before you go looking for identity, go figure out who you are in Christ.” She also said she would remind that younger version of herself, “You’re beautiful just the way you are.” Those are words grounded in her own faith and experience, not a simple formula she expects everyone to follow.
Bekah says the season she spent partying now helps her connect with young people who are in a similar place. She does not tell the story as a way to look down on who she was or who her friends were. Instead, she talks about it because she remembers searching for belonging and trying to build an identity from other people’s approval.
Taking space, then finding her friends again
After the night that changed her direction, Bekah says there was a season when she had to remove herself from her old friend groups. She did not know who she was without them or how to make decisions without their influence. During that time, she immersed herself in her relationship with God and worked on her relationship with her parents, which she says had not been healthy.
Some friends thought her change was temporary. Others were hurt or confused when she stepped away. Bekah remembers believing that the friendships might return one day, even though she did not know when or how. She says it took two or three years before friends began reaching out. One friend apologized and told her she understood what Bekah was doing. Others said they were proud of her.
Nearly a decade later, Bekah says she still has group chats with friends from that earlier season. Some of those friends now attend church and serve there. Others do not follow the same faith. She says that is okay. She is still proud of the women they have become, and she does not speak about them to dishonor them.
For Bekah, the story is not that every friendship must be kept exactly as it was, or that everyone has to make the same choices. It is that taking space to understand herself did not mean she had to stop caring about the people she had known. The relationships changed, and some of them found their way back into her life in a different form.
Sharing faith without forcing a conversation
Today, Bekah and Elijah lead young adults at Inspire Church. Bekah says young adults want honest conversations that speak to the season they are actually in. Her own experience gives her a way to meet people without pretending she has always had every answer.
She also says timing matters. Bekah does not look for people to pressure into a conversation about faith. She described a flight where she introduced herself to the woman beside her, and their conversation naturally turned to church. When the woman showed interest, Bekah invited her to attend and offered to save her a seat.
That approach reflects the way Bekah now understands her story. Her faith is central to her life, but she does not describe it as a reason to shame the people who were part of her past. She can tell the truth about the season she left while still staying connected to friends whose lives took a different direction.
The booth at V Lounge was a turning point, not the end of Bekah’s friendships. In the years that followed, she learned who she was apart from those relationships, and then discovered that some of those same relationships could continue with more room for honesty and change. When she speaks with young people now, she carries both parts of that story: the choice to step away, and the possibility of meeting people again without asking them to become someone else first.
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Accuracy Note
This story follows Bekah's account of her experience and friendships in Episode 95. Her personal memories and interpretations are presented as she described them and have not been independently verified.
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