rebelling against low expectations
My younger brother is successful in almost everything he does. His lawn mowing business as a pre-teen. His filmmaking career as a teenager. Finding an amazing wife, he married when he was 19. His track college scholarship. The guy faces challenges and excels. He’s intelligent, athletic, and charismatic. It’s incredible. I’m proud. But also, sometimes I’m jealous. Everyone wants to hear what...
Unqualified. Too broken. Not enough. You may describe yourself this way, and the world may describe you this way too. You aren’t smart enough, strong enough, brave enough. Your mind is too broken, your heart is too worn, your body is too weak. The world may use any of these messages to tell you that you’re disqualified, and you might believe them. But what if these very things didn’t disqualify...
As I climb up the last steps of childhood, pushing through the final blocks of high school final exams, I have often found myself asking the question, “What am I going to do now?” The journey so far has been like trekking up a hill where the horizon on the other side is endless with opportunities and new things to discover. I’m now at the point in my life where I get to stand back and...
When I graduated five years ago, I didn’t have a life plan. I remember wrestling with uncertainty, trying to figure out what was next as I attempted to answer the bombardment of What’s next? questions. I felt the suffocating pressure to have my life plan mapped out by graduation day. I’m sure many 2021 graduates can relate. In the five years since I received my diploma, I’ve experienced numerous...
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.” This was the famed 20th Century Russian author Leo Tolstoy’s pessimistic outlook on life, and it is shared by many individuals today. Tolstoy felt life was meaningless because he rejected faith in God. But even Christians can sympathize with the feeling. Have you ever felt life was meaningless? One of the wisest and...
Scrolling through my old Instagram posts, I hesitated over one in particular. In that post, I made how sick I’d been public. It was pre-diagnoses, when the only thing doctors were telling me was that it was anxiety (it wasn’t). That was a very dark time in my life. I was at peace, yes, but that doesn’t change how dark it sometimes got—and sometimes still is. A lot of people told me things like...
I want a time machine. To go see the future so I can plan accordingly. To go back to the past so I can know what I don’t know already. Mainly, to never be blind-sided by the difficult or the easy moments of life. Right now, I feel blind. I have been reading Jeremiah and was struck by the same blindness in the lives of the Israelites. They are blind to the power of their God and instead turn to...
Many distractions battle for our souls on a daily basis, but there is One who is worthy of our full attention. With all this noise, it can be hard to focus on what really matters. There are countless external voices vying for our attention. Even our own internal voices can get out of control. Our ambitions can trap us. Our worries can entangle us. Our striving can entrench us in chaos of our own...
Carpe diem: Seize the day. Recently, I watched the movie Dead Poets Society and it left that phrase, Carpe Diem, bouncing around in my mind. The saying challenged me to rethink how I live, because generally, I don’t seize the day. It seemed like something I should be doing. Something that would better my life and increase my impact on the world. But I wasn’t exactly sure how to seize the day, or...
I had big plans for my high school years. I was going to lead Bible studies and disciple younger girls and volunteer and get involved in local ministry. I was determined to use those years of flexibility and energy well for God’s glory. I was going to do hard things. Well, God had other plans. I spent the majority of my high school years bedridden and housebound. I got sick—really sick—and I...
rebelling against low expectations
