rebelling against low expectations
A wave of noise washed over me. I was fresh off the plane to intern with a church planting team in a country on the other side of the world, and I had just walked into a room full of kids. We chatted and drank tea as I eyed pastries I’d never seen before. Slowly the students filtered out, and my teammate and I squished into the tiny kitchen in the back to wash the plates. However, one student...
“Do you think that Islam is a way to go to Heaven?” My sweet friend genuinely wanted to know what I thought. And my heart wrenched. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t believe Islam is the way to God, but I also wanted to be sensitive to my friend who had just lost her Muslim family member. She absolutely needed truth, but she needed it gently. I looked at my teammate, and she stepped in while I...
I sat on a low concrete wall at the edge of the river. Across the river in front of me, a mosque stood guard. Throughout the day, prayer calls reverberate in the city from this and the several other mosques in my small town. The architecture was beautiful. But that day my heart felt so heavy. That day, I was the only known Evangelical Christian in the entire town, and for many, many miles. I am...
Footsteps! I clicked off my flashlight and hid my book under my blanket, waiting for my parents’ footsteps to pass. The next two minutes seemed to take forever as I waited to make sure they weren’t walking by again. The coast was clear. Breath in. Breath out. I really should go to bed, but just a few more pages until the end of the chapter . . . Surely, I wasn’t the only one doing this in middle...
When Peter and I started dating, it was crucial to us that God be at the center of our relationship. But . . . neither of us had done this before, and we had no idea what that actually looked like in action. We vaguely knew we wanted to read the Bible together, pray together, and learn together. We had both been praying for each other ever since we met. And Peter is great about taking every...
International mission work has increasingly been on my heart lately. If only you could see the passion in my eyes and hear it in my voice as I say that! After attending the Cross Conference in January, I texted some friends, “This is what I was created for!” I’ve been poring over Isaiah 6, when he is commissioned, reading it over and over again with a longing heart. Verse 8 says, “And I heard the...
“We need to just make up a word.” I agreed. We both paused. I had no ideas. I vetoed “friends+”, but when he suggested “situationship” it seemed to fit. It doesn’t roll off my tongue well, but then again, where Peter and I are at is not something that fits neatly into a box. We aren’t ‘just friends’ anymore, and we decided it wouldn’t help to pretend that’s all we are. But we’re also...
“Tell the world these things we are going through in Nigeria.” A twenty-eight-year-old mother of three, Aisha was raped–just because someone saw a Bible in her home and assumed her husband was a pastor. Her story and plea on the Open Doors website broke my heart. We hear these horror stories every once in a while in our Christian circles when someone feels the need to remind us of how good...
rebelling against low expectations
