Months later, Troutt received a call from Los Angeles letting her know that her application had been received. She thought it was a prank at first but then realized what had happened. She called her mom, thinking they would have a good laugh about it, but to her surprise, her mom asked if she had prayed yet about going on the show.
Troutt decided to take her mom’s advice, even though “this feels not like something God would want me to do.” Over the next months, she took the next steps to be on the show and kept praying along the way. “I just really felt this radical peace to say yes,” she said.
She assumed her main role would be to “love on” and “encourage” her fellow contestants. Then, she was one of the final two women. She elected to take herself out of the running because of the misaligned values she and Weber had.
“Did you really feel like you fell in love in two months?” Bure asked.
“So you’re in a competitive environment. You’re, like, constantly talking about the same person all the time,” Troutt answered. “All of the dates are centered around what would make you experience a really high high or a low low to get your emotions very entangled.”
The producers “know what they’re doing,” she pointed out. Contestants take tests beforehand, so the producers “know very much how to read you and what pulls your heart strings.” For example, they knew she was a faith-based, family-focused person. She got the first one-on-one with Weber, which was his parents’ vow renewal.
“For sure, your emotions get very involved and it’s very confusing. But I would say for me personally,” said Troutt, “just because I had made the decision to save myself for marriage and because I had been so prayerful about who my future spouse was going to be, I was not willing to settle for anything less than God’s best.”
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Throughout the filming of the season, Troutt prayed for God’s leading. “It was kind of going back to like, ‘Lord, what do I want most over what do I want right now? Like, what is your will for my life?’”
Bure observed that Troutt likely had set boundaries for herself prior to going on the show, which is important to do before the pressure is high. Troutt agreed and said doing so is important even in everyday life.
“You have to make decisions outside of the heat and the temptation of a moment in advance of, who do I want to be?” she said. “What are my values? What are my convictions? What does God’s Word say? Because then when you’re thrown into pressure cooker moments, it’s going to test you.”
