By Ashley Vaughan

A phone was ringing. The shrill sound wasn’t out of the ordinary or unexpected, the phones had been ringing off their hooks for days now. Yet the 17-year-old intern at the next desk was in a quandary. She, and half of the staff, had been told to stop answering the phones, that there were too many other critical, time-sensitive tasks to be done. But her coworker had stepped out of the room for a minute, and the phone just kept ringing and ringing.

She felt a nudge from the Holy Spirit, and decided to pick up the phone. “Hello?”…

By Ashley Vaughan

Failure. That’s a word that can make even the coolest cucumber break out in a cool sweat, or set the most confident person’s teeth on edge. It’s a word that haunts and keeps you up at night. 

Recently, a friend at church asked the seemingly harmless question of, “What’s new in life?” I casually shared about a new job I started, and then the conversation quickly led to me admitting to all the feelings of insecurity and the utter terror of potential failure that had made me wake up to 2am panic attacks three weeks in a row. Every morning. 2am. Assailed by a barrage of accusations that I was headed toward absolute failure.

I don’t think I’m alone in this experience either.