rebelling against low expectations
Have you ever felt that fire in your chest that makes you want to yell the truth? Perhaps you just read a social media post that twisted Scripture. Maybe you heard something on a podcast that didn’t sit well with you. Or perhaps you were at youth group and someone’s answer made you cringe inside. That fire begins to burn and it’s all you can do to refrain from screaming the truth from the...
I’m a perfectionist, and I’m not proud of that. Being a perfectionist means I put a lot of pressure on myself, create unrealistic goals, and always try to impress others. I want to appear as if I have it “all together”. I’ll never forget how much I wanted to appear that way when it came time to pick classes for my Junior year of High School. In 9th grade, I took two honors...
There is no shortage of articles, podcasts, and books on how to pray, what to pray, when to pray, the benefits of prayer, model prayers, tips on organizing your prayers, and where to find nice notecards and journals to keep prayers. These aren’t unimportant questions. But there is a greater one: Do you realize Who you are praying to? When I stop and think about what prayer is, I am totally and...
Are we willing to follow God outside our comfort zones? I recently went on my first missions trip, and while it wasn’t anywhere exotic (just my home city), God taught me a few lessons about following him to new places. For context, the camp I volunteered with has several sign-up options: sports teams, home-repair teams (which I did for three years), and kid’s ministry teams. I was hesitant to...
What if I got real honest? What if I took a risk? What if I opened up my heart and let you see in? The song was not at all the kind I usually listen to. The music wasn’t mine, but the lyrics hit me deep and I instantly knew what I had to write. There was someone on the other end of my screen who had to hear this. Now, as I sit here, staring at my laptop, watching words appear in clear black on...
The letter you are about to read was written out of the deep desire of my heart to start living a life that loved like Christ loved. A few months ago, I was holding on to my own plans, hopes, and wants so tightly that I was hurting people close to me. However, God in His grace got a hold of my heart and something in me changed. As I started asking Him to help me, He started filling me with a...
7 A.M. rolled around, and I felt fresh. God’s words were alive. Ideas flowed fast. I would dig through Scripture until something caught my eye that I could carry to my desk, and then I spent an hour typing up pages in my pajamas. Those pages worked nicely for Sunday blog posts. I sometimes wondered if a big Christian website might peek at them. And do you know what? Being a young Christian writer...
This pandemic severed our social lives, and many teens are turning to social media to fill some emptiness. As we scroll through happy pictures, jealousy creeps into our minds before we can stop it. Looking at huge successes of other bloggers can turn my happy attitude into discouragement as I look at my blog stats. God blessed me with so much, but if I’m honest, I find comparison and covetousness...
Recently, hundreds of people gathered in my state and others to protest stay-at-home regulations put in place by the state government. Among the protesters were small-business owners struggling to maintain their businesses, parents out of work and ineligible for unemployment benefits, people awaiting care that has been deprioritized, and others who were simply unconvinced of the danger of COVID...
As I copied the words “humble and gentle” from Ephesians 4:2 into my journal, the list of problems I constantly faced ran through my mind. I was too quiet, too unsure. I needed confidence and boldness to speak up. Why should I focus on being humble? That seemed like the opposite. I was puzzled. Humility was something I’d figured out a while ago. I didn’t brag. I didn’t think I was the best...
rebelling against low expectations
