rebelling against low expectations
Sometimes, life comes at you with a punch to the soul. If you wonder if you’ve ever felt it, chances are you haven’t. But there are those of you who may have felt a twinge of pain when you read those words. Maybe your bruising and bleeding is still raw as you press your hand to your gut to staunch the pain and forget again. Lift your head and look around you. Take a breath and let it out slow...
In my world, until I was fourteen, hard things only happened to other people. People I didn’t know, except by proxy, who my family would pray for, and my parents would discuss sadly. Not my friends and family. Not me. When My Life Fell Apart I’m not talking about the everyday ups and downs life gives us. I’m talking about the heart-breaking tragedies so many of God’s children face. The deaths of...
I laid on my mat in the dark, crying my eyes out. I remember actually choking as I sobbed as silently as I could. Simply praying that the wind in the tent would silence whatever noise I was making. This experience is a perfect example of how I interacted with my tears. I thought of them as something to keep hidden in a dark tent, ready to wake up the next morning and pretend like nothing happened...
Unqualified. Too broken. Not enough. You may describe yourself this way, and the world may describe you this way too. You aren’t smart enough, strong enough, brave enough. Your mind is too broken, your heart is too worn, your body is too weak. The world may use any of these messages to tell you that you’re disqualified, and you might believe them. But what if these very things didn’t disqualify...
Chronic illness is one of the hardest things to ever happen to me. It’s also one of the best. I know, that probably doesn’t make sense. Chronic illness doesn’t sound like a “good” thing. Hard things generally don’t seem good. I didn’t think it was a good thing when I got sick. But, as time has gone on and my mindset has changed, I’ve realized what a gift it is. Maybe I just needed to redefine...
Last year, a few days before Christmas, my neat, happy familial world crashed around my feet. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. Really quickly debilitating cancer. The news, the surgery, and the treatments took a devastating toll on my mom and on us all. I’m 17, and I’ve seen sorrow and suffering in my life, but never experienced anything that struck so deeply or that hurt so much. As a natural...
Recently, one of my uncles died. While I wasn’t super close with him, he had always been a part of my family. He was a constant. Although I didn’t talk with him a lot, I knew he was always there. But those are things you don’t think about when that person is still in your life. Those are things you think about after they have passed. And it was only when my family prepared a song to record for...
You know what is one of the worst cliche sayings ever? “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I’m not one for cliche sayings to begin with, but that one has never sat quite right with me. I’ve always felt like it was a lie; a saying to give you false hope in the midst of your suffering; something to slap on the walls of a classroom to give half-hearted encouragement to its readers. After...
Jim and Elisabeth Elliot are two of my heroes. I’ve devoured as many books by Elisabeth Elliot as I can get my hands on and been moved to tears by Jim’s commitment to God—and the tragedy it led to. I’ve read their journal entries and love letters, listened to audio clips from Jim and talks given by Elisabeth. God has used their steadfast devotion to Him to fuel a fire of passion in my own heart...
Scrolling through my old Instagram posts, I hesitated over one in particular. In that post, I made how sick I’d been public. It was pre-diagnoses, when the only thing doctors were telling me was that it was anxiety (it wasn’t). That was a very dark time in my life. I was at peace, yes, but that doesn’t change how dark it sometimes got—and sometimes still is. A lot of people told me things like...
rebelling against low expectations
