rebelling against low expectations
It’s just a phone number. I smiled as I slipped his phone back to him. “There. Text me,” I said. His smirk assured me that he would. I turned and walked out of the cafeteria. High school would bore me without guy-friends, I thought. It’s just a text. Sure enough, he texted me. I responded to him, of course. That’s just what teenagers do. Girls text guys, guys text girls. And boy, did I text. Not...
“I hate that guy!” “You’re a jerk!” “You know what I heard she did? It was just awful!” “I don’t want to deal with them again!” We’ve all heard these phrases from someone else in some form or another. Some of us have said them, or other phrases not on the list. I know I have. So often we take for granted the things we say...
It’s in our nature to work and have aspirations. Some of us are loud and outspoken about our goals, while others are quiet about it. Ambition and aspiration is in all of us–adults, teens, Christians, and non-Christians. There’s several common ones: Desiring a certain job/career. Aiming to be popular. Gaining wealth. But if these simple goals are left unchecked by the truth of the...
I don’t care if I get fired. I thought jokingly, I’ve got to get a drink. I had been bringing carts in from the parking lot for the past few hours–not exactly easy work in South Florida, where it’s in the 80-degree range, even during the winter. I was pretty thirsty. It had been a couple hours since my lunch break. By now, I felt parched. It might sound cliché, but the water from the Publix...
All the things I had planned to write don’t make sense anymore. I meant to talk about needing beauty in the midst of the cacophony of the world, full of the steady patter of cars and busyness and cement sidewalks—that chaos of busyness. But that’s gone now. I meant to speak of the longing for a great Something, a something that took the discordant notes of the Monday commute and mundane...
Right now, many people across the world are either quarantined or just simply avoiding going anywhere. We are hearing phrases like “social- distancing” or “self-quarantine,” which really mean that we are avoiding contact with anyone. Schools are online, businesses are either shutting down or running online, events are being cancelled, and everything seems to be quite a mess. Through all of this...
Have you ever seen a ship battle a storm? I know it feels like we’re weathering our own storm right now, but I want to focus on another aspect to storms. I’ve always wondered what a sailor would feel in the face of a storm at sea. Once, I heard a sailor remark, “In a storm, what you really hope for is that no one building the ship took any shortcuts.” That left me thinking. How often do we take...
I’m in an interesting phase of my life where I’m not doing anything big or exciting. My weekdays consist of waking up (always good), doing my morning routine, completing my schoolwork for the day, having dinner with my family, going to sleep (another great activity), and doing it all over again. This is so monotonous to me. I’m the type of person that loves spontaneity. Thankfully, my parents...
Are you a dreamer? I’ve noticed a lot of Rebelutionaries tend to be dreamers. Crazy dreamers. We passionately come up with projects and ideas totally ridiculous for a teenager to realistically accomplish. Sometimes, we realize that reality and give up on our dreams. Yet a lot of the time—often because of our ignorance—we dive right in and go for it anyway. Sometimes we fall flat on our face. But...
This last December, I participated in perhaps the craziest ministry outreach ever. I work with an inner-city children’s ministry, and we ran two major Christmas events over one weekend, telling hundreds of kids and their families about Jesus and giving them all Christmas presents. Our final event on Sunday involved busing in dozens of kids to our church partner that had been collecting special...
rebelling against low expectations
