rebelling against low expectations
Shame is something many people carry around like a bag of rocks. Let’s face it, we’ve all done something we regret. It could be that you didn’t say what you needed to before it was too late, or maybe it was something you did say. It could be something you looked at late at night when no one else was around to see the computer screen, or giving into peer pressure. It might be something I...
“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...
It all started in the shaky, red-faced years of middle school. When I looked at people, I thought of what was going inside their minds. When I tried to think of what to say, my mind blanked. When I decided to talk to someone, I suddenly shrank back in fear I wouldn’t know what to say or that they wouldn’t want to talk to me. For the first time in my life, I realized like a blow to my face, that I...
“While I was wallowing in self-pity, focused on myself, there was a whole world with literally billions of people who had no idea who God is, how amazing He is, and the wonders He has done for us. They are the ones who are really suffering. They don’t know His hope, His peace, and His love that transcends all understanding. They don’t know the message of the gospel. After loving us with the most...
I have a crime to confess. I have been living for me. I have been living to glorify the name of Audrey instead of the name of Jesus. I have prided myself in the identity I’ve crafted instead of the identity Jesus won for me at the expense of His life. I have created the appearance of a girl who’s got it all together. But when I fail, I realize how frail this identity truly is. There’s no hope in...
Have you ever felt frustrated with your life? Like nothing is happening the way it should and no matter how hard you try, nothing is changing? Maybe you feel like that now. I know these past few days, I’ve felt like that. I’ve felt deeply frustrated, even angry, with the circumstances all around me. So, I think I can at least partially relate with what you’re going through. But there’s also...
When someone we love receives a chronic illness diagnosis, it is easy to feel helpless. It doesn’t matter if they are our younger brother, our mother, or our best friend. We can still feel like we are too young to help them. For most of us chronic illness is huge and scary and unknown. What can we possibly do? Yet you don’t have to be a certain age to love someone. Love is about relationships...
This summer I staffed at Summit Ministries, which was an exhilarating, exhausting, hilarious, heart-wrenching, broken and beautiful time of growth and service and encouragement and learning. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about questions. “What do you mean by that?” “How did you come to that conclusion?” “What are the ramifications of...
In this life, there are many times that we’ll face something poisonous (yet popular) among people – even Christians. It’s called slander … or, in easier terms, gossip. Overhearing something that someone said and then spreading it. Or disliking a person so much you hope to bring them down by making them look bad in the eyes of other people. Maybe wanting to make yourself look good so that...
We love feeling empowered. Deny it; you won’t. Empowerment is that sense of euphoria you get when you walk out of the gym after a somewhat decent workout. It’s the way you feel when you’re listening to one of those pop songs that everyone hates, but you secretly love because it makes you feel like you’re walking on the moon. And it’s that feeling of empowerment that can lead to the kind of dream...
rebelling against low expectations
