What is AWL?

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“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

As a blonde-haired and terribly mismatched child, my answers varied:
I wanted to be an artist – complete with smock and beret.
I wanted to be Donatello from TMNT- complete with a bo staff.
I wanted to be a mermaid – (yes, you read that correctly).
But then, I decided I wanted to be a writer.

Writing was my solace, my freedom, my escape.
But eventually, I found my true freedom. And it wasn’t in writing.

I heard the Father’s Voice and felt Him guiding me.
I answered the call to become a pastor.
It’s not as glamorous as being a mermaid, but it has its perks.
I chased this calling and saw God’s faithfulness with every stride.
I knew in the depths of who I was, that I was made to be a pastor.

So I gave up my dreams of eating cheesy pizza and fighting crime.
I gave up my dreams of swimming the Atlantic and finding Prince Charming.
I gave up my dreams of changing the world with my words.

I kept believing the lie that you can only be called to do one thing. That you are only made to do one thing.

But I’ve had to ask myself this:
“If God is as big and endless as I know He is,
isn’t He creative enough to KEEP giving dreams?

I know without a doubt that being a Student Pastor is what I was made for.
But I also know that the God who formed me and knows every hair on my head,
has created me to be more than a label, a title or a career.

He made me to love students and point them to Him.
He made me to write words that no one else can write.
He made me to go into the world and tell His story.

This blog exists
because God is big, endless, and extravagant
and He gives dreams that are just the same.

This space is about freedom to do the crazy thing,
and Grace that makes no sense.
It’s about chasing impossible dreams alongside the dream-maker Himself.
It’s about wasting this one life you get on the only one who is worthy.

A Wasted Life is about spending yourself extravagantly
without concern for the cost
because this life is too short,
God is too good,
and the possibilities are too wonderful
to do it any other way.

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