AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL winner Jaslene Gonzalez says the kindness Jesus has grown in her heart has found a home in a preschool classroom.
“I give God all the glory. But I realize children need gentleness and kindness,” Gonzalez told podcast host and former AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL runner-up Shannon Stewart. For the model, caring for young children offers a place to put that faith into practice.
Gonzalez described learning to look beyond her appearance and television title for her worth. She spoke about prayer, seeking Jesus’ direction and discovering a calling she had never penciled into her career plans.
She won the competition’s eighth cycle in 2007, turning a longtime modeling ambition into a nationally recognized achievement. She still appreciates the confidence and practical skills the industry gave her, including how to carry herself, pose and walk.
But another kind of beauty matters to her, too. Asked what inner and outer beauty mean to her now, she placed God’s love and the condition of her heart at the center of her answer.
“It definitely has a lot to do with a good heart and letting that shine,” Gonzalez said of inner beauty. She wants to combine the confidence she gained through modeling with the character her faith has helped shape.
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That perspective carries into her work with preschoolers. Gonzalez said she had kept asking Jesus what He wanted for her life, and she understood the classroom opportunity as an answer to that prayer.
“I have 20 children under my wing that I pray for, I care for, I nurture, I develop,” she said. At the time of the interview, she described working with 4- and 5-year-olds.
The transition has brought some awkward moments. Gonzalez said people still recognize her as a television winner, including mothers she encounters through her work, and she has found it difficult to help others see this different part of her life.
She nevertheless described teaching as a calling, not a desperate fallback because she could not find modeling work. She credits God with cultivating the gentleness and kindness she wants to offer the children in her care.
Teaching and mentoring also reach into her modeling background. In an earlier WGN Radio interview, Gonzalez discussed modeling and the courses she offered through On Set with Jaslene; in her conversation with Stewart, she described connecting modeling instruction with personal development and inner beauty.
Gonzalez pointed to Galatians 5:22–23 as a passage that helped shape that outlook. Its description of the fruit of the Spirit, including kindness and gentleness, gave her a different way to think about what makes a person beautiful.
For viewers who struggle to separate their worth from their looks, she encouraged grounding that worth in God’s Word and love. In her classroom, that conviction meets the everyday joy of getting to know the children—and learning from them, too.
“I have belly laughs every day. I don’t know who can say that every day in their workspace,” Gonzalez said.
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