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Hey friend! Before you read this blog, I’d love to personally invite you to the She Found Joy Retreat that I am hosting in Spruce Pine, NC from July 19-21, 2024. Learn more and apply online. If you’re looking for refreshment in your faith journey and longing to experience fresh joy and healing among a company of faith-filled women, this retreat is for you, and I would love to meet you there! Love, Lauren Gaskill

With two hands, I touched the pool ledge and quickly lifted my head to look at the clock, smiling with delight over what I saw. I’d hit a 12-second split and had 18 more glorious seconds before I needed to push off to swim my next 25-yard butterfly sprint. But this was the first of 50 laps, and I knew not all of them were going to be this easy.

With Christmas just a few weeks away, our team was at the peak of high school season training. If you’ve ever known a swimmer, you know that this is when practices can make someone want to hang up their cap and goggles for good.

Halfway into the series of 25-yard sprints, I began to feel discouraged. Maybe I can’t finish this set. Maybe I won’t break that school record after all. I thought to myself. Then I looked up at the team banner hanging below the record board. It read:

Dream. Believe. Achieve.

Our coach loved these three words … so much that he made them our team motto. Almost every day he reminded us that in order to achieve great things and live the kind of life you want to live, you have to first dream and believe.

We can’t get to where we want to be — or be who we were created to be — if at first we don’t believe what God says about who we are and who we were created to be.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t believe God’s word for my life. I believed in God, I just found it hard to believe what God had to say about me.

He called me lovely — more precious than rubies (Proverbs 3:15), adored, treasured and worth dying for. I called my self broken, not good enough, pathetic and helpless.

He said He had a beautiful plan for my life (Jeremiah 29:11). I said my life was destined to be miserable.

He said I didn’t have to worry about a single thing (Philippians 4:6). I said that worrying was my middle name.

You can imagine I wasn’t the most positive person to be around in this particular season of life. But that all changed the day I finally chose to believe God’s word for my life. Like a hurricane, His love came crashing into me one day, and suddenly I realized that I could believe God because He was good. Not only was He good but in 1 John I saw that He was love. This changed everything for me.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.             -1 John 4:16 ESV

I learned that I could also believe God because His Word said I could believe Him. Luke 1:37 tells us that no word from God will ever fail.

Suddenly I saw myself through His eyes. I saw that He really did love me — flaws and all. And for the first time, my soul felt like it could fly.

It was like going from living a black and white life to living a life in technicolor. Believing God brought color and new life into my world.

On Oct. 4, 2016, I drove to Missouri to attend the Designed for Life (DFL) Conference after receiving an invitation from the conference’s founder, Debbie Lindell. The conference has a different theme every year, and the 2016 theme, She Believes, felt like it was created just for me.

There is power in believing God. There is blessing in believing God. In Luke 1:45 we are told that “blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her.” In Mark 9:23 we learn “everything is possible for one who believes.” Believing changes everything.

Back in high school, the second I chose to believe I could finish that grueling swim set, I knew deep down that I was going to finish — no matter what. And with that same attitude and determination, the second I chose to believe God for my life, I knew that I was going to be alright — no matter what. Because God loved me, and because of His love and goodness I could trust Him with my life. Maybe at one point, you’ve had an encounter that inspired you to believe that, too.

The reality is, life gets busy, and sometimes we forget or grow weary of believing God’s promises, don’t we? When life gets hard, we start to think maybe His promises, goodness and blessings are reserved for other people. When we watch the news headlines reel across our screen, we figure He has bigger fish to fry.

Dear sisters, this is what I want to tell you today: Don’t stop believing — not only who you are in Christ, but also who your Father is. God calls you by name, and He is able to do the impossible in and through you.

Once I arrived at the DFL Conference, I knew why God had wanted me to be there. He wanted me there because He wanted to strengthen my faith and confirm in my heart what He’d been asking me to believe: that He is still the God of miracles; that I will see healing manifest from all of the physical challenges I’ve faced; and that His timing really is perfect.

I don’t know what God is asking you to believe in this season of life you’re in, but I know one step is all it takes to build your faith. And you can take that one step right here, right now.Read More

This post is part of the devotional I was asked to write for a recently published devotional book called “Let Your Light Shine.” More details below.

Several months ago I woke up in the middle of a nightmare with a traumatic flashback fresh in my mind. My heart was racing, my chest was tight and my body was drenched in sweat. I tried to shove the memories playing in my head to the side, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of sheer panic. In my delirium I struggled to catch a breath and got up to splash some water on my face.

The cold water refreshed me as it washed away my beads of sweat, but seconds later I felt tears taking their place. Usually I would have stopped the water works from getting too out of control. You know, stuff the tears back where they came from. But this time, as the rolled down my cheek, I didn’t try to stop them. Like a rushing river I just let them flow.

I looked at myself in the mirror and scowled. What’s wrong with you? Seriously … you’re pathetic. You should be ashamed of yourself right now. I knew these thoughts were lies from the enemy, but the longer I stared at myself the more I started to consider them. Sure, there is always hope in Jesus, but part of me felt hopeless, like a Humpty-Dumpty who could never be put back together again.

Darkness has a way of making us question who we really are.

If you’ve seen any of the Star Wars movies, you’re probably familiar with the Force. There’s the Living Force (i.e. Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi) but there is also a Dark Side (i.e. the Sith and Darth Vader). Here’s the thing: Vader didn’t always belong to the Dark Side. Like so many of us he began his journey as an innocent, wide-eyed child of the day. But somewhere along the way the darkness found him, and it made him question who he was. Suddenly he was lost and confused — fighting a battle against light and dark while forgetting his true character.

Friends, we too face a similar battle each and every day. There is an enemy. There is darkness. And it will do everything it can to blindside us and steal our joy and identity in Christ.

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