As I swiftly walk through the halls, stressed by the rush of the day, frazzled by the race of the moment, a reflection catches my eye.  I suddenly stop, swept in by what cannot be my face.  I analyze the face staring curiously back at my own.  The deep, brown eyes seem fascinated by what remains unknown.  This cannot be my reflection.  The signs of exhaustion and anxiety hold tightly to what they claimed as their own.  Momentarily, the picture changes.  No longer am I looking at a girl, confused and concerned about tomorrow, but a child, resting in the security brought to her by her King.  Everything around…

Life is overwhelming. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am 100% incapable of navigating this crazy roller coaster that we call “life”. I just cannot do it. No matter how hard I try, I fail, and I fail miserably, at that. It can be really discouraging to get up again and again to only fall back down. It doesn’t matter what I do differently. I just cannot manage life. There is too much to manage all at once. This is such a beautiful place to be, though. When I am completely, utterly helpless, it forces me to turn to the God that I should have had…

I want to challenge you to smile this week. A smile, defined by the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, is “a pleasant or encouraging appearance” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smile). It sounds simple, right? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, what can a smile do? Nobody really notices smiles, of all things, do they? That is so wrong! So many people recognize smiles, and it can completely turn the day around! Just earlier this week, I was walking on my school campus, and I smiled at one of the students who was sitting on a bench. He looked rather lonely. As I was in my virtual Bible Study on campus just a few…

I don’t know about you, but my life has had a lot of uncertainty lately. I think, as human beings, we search for a feeling of comfort found in habit or repetition. If something is happening again and again, we get used to it and are okay with it because we know how to handle all of the challenges that accompany it. That is not how God works, though. God wants us to rest in him, not in the comfort of repetition. When we start to find ourselves comfortable with our circumstances, we become lukewarm, as we read a warning about in Revelation: “‘I know your works: you are neither…

In what areas of your life are you holding back? I was recently convicted of this over the last week. I had the perfect opportunity to witness to someone, or even just be friendly, but I chose not to simply because there were other people around. I was embarrassed. I let my self-image be more important to me than God’s calling. I was ashamed of myself that night, and I hardly slept. I decided after that not to hold back. I want to be used by God, not reserved so that I can maintain some “image” of myself that I have stuck in my own mind. I want to please…