rebelling against low expectations
My heart ached as I stared down into the freshly dug grave. Oh, how dark the muddy, cold earth looked around the little box that held my cousin’s stillborn baby girl. Death had come to our family again and in a crushing defeat. No joy would come, no hopeful celebration of a new little life. It was all taken away from a family who would have loved and cherished her. Death. The separator of close...
This year, I have been working at a church as a summer student. I’ve experienced so many different things, but one that sticks out in my mind was a pastoral visitation I went on with the Assistant Pastor. That morning I had been printing, organizing, and uploading as usual when he came in, pointed at me, and said, “You’re coming with me.” He was smiling in a way I knew well by that...
I wish people thought about death more. I think it would change the world. Hang on, stick with me. It’s just that this weekend, I witnessed a car accident. I was almost in a car accident. I also grieved the death of a family friend in a skiing accident. And I experienced the fragility of the human body, dealing with unusual brain swelling and lung issues. I’m twenty – we aren’t supposed to...
My summer started with all the normal things—volleyball practice, church activities, babysitting, etc. School had wormed its way in also—which I’m sure many fellow homeschoolers can relate to. There was also a job, a mission trip, and a YoungLife camp. Yes, it would be a busy summer, and I would be a little stressed. But I thought I could handle it. But then grief burst in. Three days before...
Valentine’s Day was stained with blood. The first thing I saw when I logged into Twitter was the words “school shooting” and “Florida” used in the same sentence. My first, selfish thought was, Where? Near here? And then, Oh no. Not again. Our collective hearts are heavy, not only with the news of this tragedy, but with the weight of similar horrors that seem to come on each other’s heels...
Two Thursdays ago, eight Christian students were killed for their faith in a college campus shooting. When I read about that tragic event in the headlines later, I realized that what surprised me the most was not that a gunman invaded the campus that morning. Certainly, that was an awful thing to do. But I was more surprised that in the face of certain death, there were still eight students who...
When are you going to get your stuff done? Procrastination can sabotage more than a day’s work. Too many of us also procrastinate in much bigger areas of life — things like growing in responsibility, maturity and in our relationship with Christ. For young people this can be expressed in the phrase: Life starts later. Life begins after high school, after college, later, someday, but not now...
The fourth installment of our Not Too Young to Die series has been a long-time in coming, but I’m happy to announce that we are now back on track. If you haven’t read the first three installments, use the links at the bottom of this post to catch up. In our last installment, Your Life Story, we discussed three marks of a tragically wasted life. Today’s post looks at the first: a...
I am convinced our lives will be no better than our view of death. In Luke 9:23-25 Jesus spoke the following: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Jesus makes it clear that depending on how we think about death we will either save our...
Death is a morbid subject. Death is scary and depressing. People shouldn’t think about death. Young people definitely shouldn’t think about death. After all, we’re young, we’re invincible, and we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. Right? Wrong! My goal throughout this series is to show that thinking rightly about death is the key to living rightly (and fully) before...
rebelling against low expectations
