rebelling against low expectations
Am I really a writer if I’m not writing? Another line marked, another due date on my calendar, but I was coming up empty. My fingers danced in the air above my keyboard without landing. I was a writer who couldn’t write. It wasn’t just that I had no ideas or no motivation. It wasn’t only the fears, doubts, and what-ifs. I was empty. I had nothing to say. During a decade of blogging, I’ve...
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…” Hebrews 12:2 (KJV, emphasis is my own). As a writer and aspiring author, the analogy that God is the Author of our stories has always resonated with me deeply. When I write, I dedicate hours upon hours of time to my story. Developing the plot, working on the setting, and fleshing out all the little details are necessary to...
Sometimes I have a hard time believing my words can make a difference. Writers get that – the risk, the uncertainty, the naysayers that tell us we will fail. Our world is made up of words – harmful, hurtful, loving, giving, grieving, cherished words. We spend our time rearranging the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, and even when we feel like we’ve crafted our finest, it’s just not good enough...
“I want to be a writer…but I have no idea where to start! Is it even possible to be a successful young writer?” Jaquelle Crowe Ferris, former Editor-in-Chief of theRebelution and bestselling author of This Changes Everything, joins the podcast today to give her very best advice and encouragement for young writers. She shares the mistakes she made throughout her writing journey (and what she...
As I sit down to write, I often forget that my words are not my own. There are many times when I forget that I must seek the Lord and ask him for guidance when I relay my thoughts into words. I often forget that the Lord deserves to be extolled through the words that I write. Words have the ability to either destroy or to build up, and this is a responsibility that I cannot carry alone. Like many...
Rarely has a mastery of so many tenets of literary pursuit been so demonstrated by a single author than that which is apparent in the voluminous writings of one Gilbert Keith Chesterton. G.K. Chesterton was the jovial turn of the (20th) century English writer who penned numerous books, articles, comic verses, and everything in between, all to varying but invariably considerable degrees of success...
Something I realized as I was listening to one of my playlists recently was that quite a few of the songs I’ve been enjoying share the common theme of storytelling or creativity in general. And not only that, a few of them are specifically about how it can relate to us as Christians in our relationship with God. So today, I want to share four songs I think will especially resonate with you if...
7 A.M. rolled around, and I felt fresh. God’s words were alive. Ideas flowed fast. I would dig through Scripture until something caught my eye that I could carry to my desk, and then I spent an hour typing up pages in my pajamas. Those pages worked nicely for Sunday blog posts. I sometimes wondered if a big Christian website might peek at them. And do you know what? Being a young Christian writer...
Almost every hero in history shares a common trait: they started young. Jonathan Edwards went to Harvard at age 13. He would become one of the most influential figures of The Great Awakening and write a series of 70 Resolutions as a 19- and 20-year old. Blaise Pascal began studying geometry at age 12. He would go on to invent the calculator at 19. Jane Austen started writing seriously as a child...
“Three doubts holding you back from sharing the gospel.” “Three steps to start reading the Bible today.” ”Three truths every young person should know about social media.” These are three examples from my list of articles I have written this year. Do you notice a trend? Yes, they all start with three, but I’m talking about something deeper. There is a tendency— for myself...
rebelling against low expectations
