rebelling against low expectations
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...
When asked what my favorite book was, I usually had no answer. That is, until I read The Hiding Place. God changed my life in many ways through the course of this book. I’ve read The Hiding Place multiple times, and each time I learned something new. What most affected me were the people. Throughout all the evil and pain, the ten Boom family continued to be wholly devoted to God, relying on Him...
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...
rebelling against low expectations
