What Girls Get Wrong

I just finished reading a novel that was really good but extremely sad. In it, the main character and her family were in a horrible car crash, her parents dead on the scene, and her little brother and herself seriously wounded. As the novel plays out, her brother dies as well. As she is in a coma, the novel is told through her eyes first as herself and then as she sees things in her comatose state. Stricken with grief over her family's passing, and in such bad shape herself that she would need quite a few reconstructive surgeries, the girl battles between whether she wants to fight for life anymore, or whether she wants to give up and die. Because according to one nurse, it is the girl's choice whether she lives or dies. While the author did a beautiful job writing the story (except for the swear words, that is), there were a couple of things I disagreed with her on. One of them was this idea, that we get to choose our own destiny. Because although we choose several thing...

So today, as I woke up twenty minutes before my alarm went off, I was laying in bed praying, and when I got up, I realized something. I do not know how it had never struck me before, at least not quite in this way, but it was a little shocking at first. I am, by nature, a very ungrateful person. Even though I say thank you a lot. It's super easy for me to forget everything I have in pursuance of my goals. Searching for a full-time school counseling job? I'll forget to be happy I substitute teach for two different districts. Feeling sick and achy one day (like today)? I'll forget that only two years ago I was so sick I wasn't able to work full-time. Frustrated and angry at my five-year-old, slow-running-at-times laptop? I'll forget that there are many people who don't even own desktops (something that would be devastating to me as writer). Yeah, #firstworldproblems anyone? It's so easy for me to forget that, even though I want all these things, I have...

Let's talk about someone you've probably heard a lot about. Peter, the apostle, the guy who was ready to chop off an ear for Christ (sorry, van Gogh, guess you didn't think of it first), and then a few hours later was swearing he'd never heard of the Man. Pastors preach a lot about Peter. There's a lot of life lessons we all get to learn from Peter's failures. I feel like he has the greatest number of embarrassing stories told about him in the Bible. Then again, he didn't kill anyone or sleep with anybody who wasn't his wife, so maybe he doesn't quite have that position all by himself. But we hear a lot about him. We hear a lot about his lack of faith. Like that time Jesus walked on the water, and when He came aside their boat, the disciples were all afraid. Then Peter, gathering courage, asks to be allowed to come to Jesus on the water. Jesus lets him come, but Peter sees the waves... We know the rest of the story. His heart quakes wi...