rebelling against low expectations
It can be very easy to stay stuck in the past especially when a past season has been very difficult. From my personal experience, I know the struggle is real. When I was in the middle of a dark time in my life, the Lord spoke to me from the song Out of Hiding by Steffany Gretzinger. I woke up one morning hearing the lyric, “Oh, as you run, what hindered love will only become part of the story.”...
“Can You really use this for good, Lord?” It was a question I asked God time and time again as I walked the dark, lonely road of depression in 2020. I knew He promised He was able to use everything for His purposes (Rom. 8:28), but I couldn’t fathom how He could take the bleak, hopeless days of brain fog and overwhelming fear and turn them into something good. I just wanted to escape the...
It happened so quickly, there was no way to know, no way to prepare… “We’re going to wreck!” I shouted to my passengers. They were my younger sister, Roseanna and her friend, Nikki. The car spun out of control on the wet road. It was hit by oncoming traffic. When it came to a stop, it burst into flames. There I was, behind the wheel, reaching for the handle to open the driver’s door. Roseanna was...
In the midst of my health struggles, it took a movie quote to shake me from my despair and remind me of the core of Christian hope. It came from the movie Return of the King. Faramir is comforting Éowyn, who can only see death and despair in both her own future and the future of the world. The scene goes like this: Éowyn: The city has fallen silent. There is no warmth left in the sun. It grows so...
The world is ripe with brokenness. Natural disasters rage, conflicts ensue, and bitterness stirs within. Death is rampant and suffering is widespread. Around 690 million people go to bed hungry every night, and approximately 150,000 people die daily. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, thus separating families, and suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Where...
You’ve been bent, bruised, and broken. You’ve stood firm, you’ve cried, you’ve grieved. You’ve gone from hopeless to hopeful all on calloused, bloody knees. Now you stand on a summit, watching the sun kiss the sky with golden rays, as the tears on your cheeks dry in the light of brighter days. Green seedlings sprout in the ashes at your feet, as a rainbow graces the sky through what’s left of the...
Sometimes, life comes at you with a punch to the soul. If you wonder if you’ve ever felt it, chances are you haven’t. But there are those of you who may have felt a twinge of pain when you read those words. Maybe your bruising and bleeding is still raw as you press your hand to your gut to staunch the pain and forget again. Lift your head and look around you. Take a breath and let it out slow...
In my world, until I was fourteen, hard things only happened to other people. People I didn’t know, except by proxy, who my family would pray for, and my parents would discuss sadly. Not my friends and family. Not me. When My Life Fell Apart I’m not talking about the everyday ups and downs life gives us. I’m talking about the heart-breaking tragedies so many of God’s children face. The deaths of...
I laid on my mat in the dark, crying my eyes out. I remember actually choking as I sobbed as silently as I could. Simply praying that the wind in the tent would silence whatever noise I was making. This experience is a perfect example of how I interacted with my tears. I thought of them as something to keep hidden in a dark tent, ready to wake up the next morning and pretend like nothing happened...
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...
rebelling against low expectations
