It was pretty obvious when God began calling me to share my story but that doesn’t mean I listened or obeyed right away. When I began praying for a purpose and for God to show me what He wanted to do with this situation, I suddenly began receiving invitations to speak about my journey with blindness.
Read MoreA few summers ago, in the midst of deep grief and loss, I had hit my breaking point and took an impromptu trip to Orlando to not only visit my friends, but in honesty, to run away from my present circumstances, get some distance, and escape from the things God was calling me to do.
Read MoreWe all naturally want to do work that is meaningful. I heard this quoted many times as a teen and young adult by my father who believes strongly in usng one’s talents and creativity to the fullest. I took this to heart and for many years believed that the gold-standard of achievement lay in scoring a full time paid job doing exactly what you love so that you could love what you do.
Read MoreThis wasn’t the life I had planned. It wasn’t part of the carefully filled out “five-year” plan I completed in senior English. This wasn’t what I had strived for, what I imagined, what I dreamt of. It was nothing I would have wanted for myself. By now, I should be putting a down payment on a house. I should have my New York Times bestseller published.
Read MoreMy name is Alycia Marie. You may remember me. Once upon a time I was associate editor of Tirzah Magazine. One day, God told me to start a home for teenage mothers. Mind you, I was 26 years old and perfectly content on my career path to be an executive director of a pregnancy center one day. Then, I met a girl. She was young, African American, pregnant, running around the streets of Milwaukee with no one to care for her. There was nowhere stable for her. I had moved to Wisconsin from Kentucky, where I had worked for a home for teenage mothers. In the midst of this young girl’s crisis, I discovered a need. One God had given me a solution for. That was the moment I found one of the callings God placed on my life.
Read MoreI’m a nanny. It’s a job which has provided me more than a few life lessons. Today, especially. I brought the four-year-old home from preschool, and reminded her of the chores she had to complete before eating lunch. I made lunch and returned to her. She failed to complete her tasks and instead chose to sit and fiddle with a toy. Usually, I don’t have any profound thoughts or nanny-wisdom. But as I watched her, I knew what I needed to say to her. I walked over and sat in front of her.
Read MoreMisused opportunities and unused talents. I think that's the best way I would describe the way most of us live out our youth. And for a lot of people, our whole lives. Because we have this mindset of "one day" and "not enough."
Read MoreI’ve always been told that singleness in a season of waiting, and that’s almost right, we just need to make sure it’s the correct kind of waiting. We cannot be passively waiting, we need to be actively waiting.
Read MoreThe first time I heard a message like this was in my home church. A man from India traveled all the way to Northern Idaho and was talking about missionary work. He was the first person to ever help me see what a “missionary” is in the Biblical sense.
Read MoreAfter months of prayers and applications, I found myself feeling angry, disappointed, and without a response from God. It has been months and I’m still here. Didn’t Jesus call us to go? My hope was that maybe God would lead me to a completely new city or maybe He would call me to go on mission in a foreign country, away from all that was familiar. I prayed, “God, take me anywhere you want to go.”
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