Along the Riverbank

      Last week I began my senior year...wait, what?! Yes, senior year. I really do find it hard to believe. One more year of high school left, and as I reflect on the past three years I realize how much I've changed.       High school is all about growing.  It's about making mistakes and learning from them, taking risks and sometimes failing or getting hurt. It's about discovering what makes you passionate. It's about learning about who you are and, more importantly, who God is.      I can't count the things God has revealed to me through circumstances, prayer, and people over the past three years. I hardly have all the answers, but I started to make a list. A list of things I would tell the frightened, innocent, and overwhelmed me as I walked through the doors of high school on my first day.      Some are silly, others are serious, all are things I've found to be true in my life experiences. Maybe you'll take my ad...

As a child, I was frightened by many things - the dark, loud noises, and spiders just to name a few...(okay, okay, I admit it, that last one still gets me...). But there was one thing, one treacherous thing, which instilled in me a stronger fear than anything else. One thing which made my insides tremble. One thing that I dreaded the thought of more than anything else: the deep end. Oh, I loved to swim. But as soon as my toes could no longer touch the bottom, I would start to panic. There was something about the security of knowing that I could stand up on my own. As I've grown older, I'm no longer scared of the deep end. However, I've discovered that in my spiritual walk, I'm a lot like the 6-year-old me in a swimming pool. I tend to shy away from the deep end. Where I can't touch. Where I am helpless if my own strength fails. Yet, the more I learn about Christ, the more I realize He calls His followers to the deep. He calls us...