rebelling against low expectations
Are you ever afraid God has abandoned you? It’s easy to fear that sometimes. When you see the depths of your own depravity and sin—when you give in to temptation again and search desperately for freedom—you wonder how God could still love you. How He could still be with you. Or maybe, for whatever reason, He just feels far away; doubts and despair come knocking on the door of your heart and...
My mother was adamant. “You’ve started to wrap your whole identity up in, ‘I’m sick. I can’t do that.’ That’s not healthy!” Her words shocked me: because they were true. I was sick. There were many things I couldn’t do. But it had become my identity. It’s not as if I wasn’t actually ill. This week I had spent more time in bed than out, unable to convince my exhausted body to simply shower. It had...
Allow me to unfold the incredible story behind the beloved hymn, It Is Well, so that you may know, just like the Spafford family, that your soul can be well, even though sorrows high as sea billows roll through your life. This story is both heartbreaking and amazing at the same time. The reality that one man and wife could experience so much heartache and loss, while still glorifying God is an...
A beautiful yet deadly woman sits poised upon the back of a dragon. Both are covered with the blood of innocents. Both sparkle like black fire. Both smell of smoke and strong perfume. Dark clouds boil in the sky, unleashing bolts of crackling lightning. The woman’s nostrils flare as if she can smell the children and saints hidden among her followers. She reaches down, stroking the scaley beast...
I can still remember the time when I lost a very close friend. I still remember the way it hurt and the way I cried into my pillow. I still remember the sadness I felt in my heart when I thought of this friendship. I can imagine you understand those feelings too. I imagine you also know what it’s like to “break up” with a close friend. While we always hear about boyfriend and girlfriend break...
A couple of years ago, a struggling friend told me, “Everyone always leaves.” Around that time, whenever she and I talked, we would pretend we were sitting on a bench in a park, just the two of us. Because somehow the world felt a little lighter that way. When she mentioned her fear of my leaving, I told her I would stay and, without hesitation, she asked, “What if it rains?” A couple weeks ago...
Is it possible to have hope when your world feels like it’s crumbling around you? What can you practically do to stay grounded in times of loss, suffering, and pain? Randy Alcorn joins the podcast today to talk about the reality of the hope we have in Heaven (and what Heaven is really going to be like) and how this hope has sustained him through his own seasons of loss and suffering. If...
My heart broke as yet another chronically ill teen unwittingly voiced questions and struggles I’d heard over and over again. Most of us don’t know it, but we all seem to have the same questions. Perhaps there are some variations in wording and scenarios, but those questions you are ashamed to verbalize? So many others have wondered the same things. You know what? It’s okay to ask those questions...
In the movies, books, and tv shows, when the main character auditions for something, they almost always get the role, get the job, or even if rejected, chances are, they get accepted later on. But the truth is, rejection is real, and it’s a whole lot more common than they make it out to be in the movies. We’re not guaranteed acceptance. When we audition for something, when we ask someone to be...
“I feel like a tornado just ripped through our lives. We all survived, but it still caused devastation. There are still piles of wreckage to be dealt with. Still evidence of the tornado’s presence. And it didn’t just cause new pain, it tore the doors off rooms where old pain lay dormant and scattered it everywhere.” I penned these words a few weeks after my momma came home from the hospital. On...
rebelling against low expectations
