rebelling against low expectations
The world is changing all around us. For students in high school and college, it can feel like everything has been cancelled or is about to be cancelled. School. Church. Youth group. Field trips. Movie theaters. Everything. The gymnastics tournament you’ve been training for all year? Cancelled. The musical you were supposed to perform in next month? Cancelled. That mission trip you’ve been...
I shook as the waves of grief ripped through my body. The pain of this one moment had left a scar on my heart that would last forever. My mind raced with unanswered questions. More pain. My thoughts quickly reverted to prayer. Why, God? Why now? Why this? Lord, I don’t understand. Help me to accept this. I cannot carry this burden on my own. It is too heavy… please… I beg you...
“Be okay with missing out,” I told a living room full of middle school girls. “You don’t have to be a part of every single activity or conversation.” We were talking about friendship, but the concept is relevant to so many areas of our lives: be okay with missing out. Easier said than done, I know. We want to be a part of everything. We want to be a part of not only conversations and activities...
Several years ago I got sick. The thing about this sickness was that I didn’t get better. Days dragged into weeks and weeks dragged into months until the months turned into years. Still there was no sure end in sight. Some days are harder than others. My illness plays games with my brain and I start to forget things and feel like the world is closing in on me. I get confused and it is hard for me...
My Bible study leader’s words echoed in my mind. “Christians are marked by urgency. We should be sharing the gospel now.” I leaned back in the car seat and stared out into the blackness of night. I wanted to share the gospel, I really did. But I had no one to share it with. It felt like I stood by watching while my peers filled the spiritual lifeboats. Watching them because I had no...
Like many young people, I finished high school with only a vague notion of what God wanted me to do with my life. My interests in novel writing, acting, and fashion design were artsy and impractical. To further complicate matters, I struggled with a terrible chronic illness, so for a couple of years my entire focus was on getting healthy. And even then, I had to face the fact that I might never...
Nine times out of ten when our friend suffers, we ache to our core. In response to that burden, we search for ways to alleviate their pain, to give them comfort. I faced that kind of scenario recently. My friend, Eliza Downer—a worn-out warrior battling for joy and strength amid the weariness that comes from chronic illness—was about to restart “one hundred days of thankfulness” and...
In case you haven’t heard yet, Lauren Daigle just recently dropped her full album, Look Up Child. It’s amazing. Even before she released the entire album, the singles pre-released were making significant waves within the industry as they each dropped, with the title track even making Apple Music’s coveted “World Record” playlist. Anyways, the second track on the...
It’s hard to believe it was ten years ago when Do Hard Things came out. Some of us can barely remember a time we weren’t familiar with the phrase “do hard things.” For others of us, it’s a revolutionary new concept we’ve only recently discovered and started applying to our lives. (And still others of us are ten-years familiar with it and still learning to apply it to our lives.) In any case, Do...
How do you react when you hear someone talk about Bible memorization? I know for a lot of us, it’s with a vague feeling of guilt. I should probably do that. I should probably do that more. What stops us from memorizing God’s word? There are lots of reasons. I’m not good at memorizing. I can’t remember anything. I don’t have time. I’m going to do that…...
rebelling against low expectations
