A Year of Being Brave

It’s been quite a while since I have written for this space.  Sorry dear reader.  It hasn’t been for a lack of things to write about but it’s just been hard to find the words to write here.

But here’s a start:

I’ve never really been one to make New Year’s resolutions.  For most people it seems to be a futile effort of having the best of intentions and then powerlessly watching those intentions fade rapidly in the face of challenges to those intentions.  January 1 also seems like an arbitrary point in time to start or stop something.  Why would you wait until January 1^st to make a change in your life when you know on May 17^th that you need to make changes?   And is there really something to gain by hastily making up some goals so you have something by January 1?

While I’m skeptical of the whole New Year’s resolution thing, this year I decided to choose a word that I want to focus on for these 366 days.  It’s something I’ve heard of others doing and I love the simplicity and the power of this practice. 

After much thought, prayer, and Pinterest quote reading, I settled on the word brave.  A word that I hope by the end of the year I will more fully embody.  A word that people might use to describe my heart and my actions.

Sure, by many standards I have done brave things. There have certainly been areas of my life where I would consider myself to be brave. 

But in general brave is not a word I would use to describe myself.  There are so many really important parts and aspects of my life in which I need to be brave.  These are the areas of my life in which I desperately want to be brave and to do the things that require really, really, hard work and large doses of bravery. 

Doing brave things is scary and just thinking about doing them brings about much anxiety and fear in me.  I want people’s approval of the things I do and say.  I’m afraid of sharing the truest things about myself.  I worry I will not have the support I need and want from the people who have meant so much to me.  I don’t know if I’ll be good enough or right or even ok.

And these are the things that make being brave so hard and yet so necessary.

Brené Brown says, “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.”  Over the past year I’ve discovered how true this is as I’ve been figuring out my story and learning to confidently live into it while loving myself!

But I’ve come to see just how much power and freedom there is in my relationship with God that there is no real reason not to be brave.  There is no real reason to not live fully as the person God created me to be without shame.  There is no real reason to feel guilty for the things I cannot do today or the things I cannot do ever.  There is no real reason not to ask for the things I need.  There is no real reason to not listen to that voice and those nudges that so firmly guide me.  There is no real reason not to be vulnerable, honest, and full of joy because of all God has done and will do in and through me.

2015 was a year of discerning my next steps in life’s journey and as 2016 progresses I am so excited to live more fully into what I have learned about myself while continuing to take the next brave steps.

Here’s to a year of being brave!

God in Haiti

As I prepared to go to Haiti I was considerably worried that God might use this experience to ask me to do something new, big, and scary (like move to Haiti and be a missionary or adopt a few Haitian children).  I’ve prayed some pretty bold prayers over the past year or so and God had started to provide some bold answers to my prayers.  And I was scared the rest of the answers would be in a form that required me to step way out of my comfort zone.

While I was in Haiti and in the few weeks I’ve been back from Haiti, God has provided me with undeniable peace and reassurance that I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing in this season of my life.  No need to buy a one-way plane ticket to Haiti and start learning Creole.  Whew.

BUT, I’m not off the hook that easily. 

God often does ask us to do things, but I have come to understand that God is much more concerned about who we are rather than what we do.  What we do will please God if we are the people God wants us to be.  Our actions follow from who we are.

God didn’t ask me to make a radical life change and do something different, but God did use my experience in Haiti to start to teach me to be someone different: someone who more fully recognizes and rests in God’s unceasing presence.

I have problem with control.  I wish I could control every detail of my life and have every last detail planned out, and boy do I try.  As you might guess, trying to control every aspect of my life doesn’t work out very well for me because life just doesn’t work that way.  I’m often left grasping, worried, anxious, and frustrated.

But God has something better in mind for me, and God is using my experience in Haiti to help me become more like the person God intended me to be. 

Since I returned from Haiti, I have been overwhelmed (in a good way) by all the places, situations, and people I have seen God’s abundant hope, grace, and love.  Almost literally everywhere I turn, in every circumstance, in so many of my interactions with other people I have been overwhelmed by seeing and being aware of God’s presence.  I’ve seen God working out the details.  I’ve seen God transforming people.  I’ve seen God taking care of the minor and the major issues.

Maybe it was because of all the evil, death, and desperation I saw in Haiti that I HAD to look for God to have something to hold on to so that I didn’t lose all faith and hope in God.  In a place where living conditions are so bad you think God wouldn’t and couldn’t be present, God was indeed present when I looked.  Something “clicked” through my intentional act of looking in Haiti that has allowed me to better notice God in every person, every situation, every part of Creation. 

As my awareness of God’s presence has grown, something shifted in me: I’m not bothered that I can’t control everything.  God is here and God is moving in powerful ways.  I’m just along for the ride.  Recognizing this has allowed me to rest and trust in God’s presence.  

And it is so good.

Unambiguous

In Haiti, the newness and extremes of everything we were seeing, learning, and doing made it difficult to keep everything straight in my mind.  So much ran together in my brain.  Who said what.  Where we went.  What day it was.  Names of people we met and places we visited.

But there are also images and situations that are ingrained in my brain.  Carved into my heart.  Embedded in my soul.  Moments that I can still see and feel so vividly.

One of those moments was the feel of a little boy sitting on my lap. 

On our last evening in Haiti our group got to attend the worship service at the Love A Child orphanage.  Just like kids at my church, many of the kids at the orphanage struggled to stay focused and sit still.  They whispered to each other.  They wiggled in their seats.  Two girls across from me temporarily switched sandals with each other.  Their eyes drifted around the room when they should have been praying or singing. 

(Thanks to Alyssa for capturing the moment!)

One little boy wandered over near where I was sitting and he climbed up on my lap.

I don’t know his name.  I don’t know his story.  I don’t know how old he is.  The only thing I do know is that I was given the privilege of holding that sweet little boy for a few minutes.

He settled in, leaned against me, and started sucking his thumb.  As he sat on my lap I was so aware of all that was around me.  The warm but cooling breeze coming in the open windows.  The quickly fading light of the setting sun.  The warm colors of the sky framing the mountains in the distance.  The wind rustling the leaves of the palm trees just outside the window.  The faces of the beautiful children of all ages throughout the room.  The compassionate “moms” seated with the children.  The sound of foreign and familiar words being sung and spoken.  How comfortable this little boy was sitting on the lap of a complete stranger.  The warmth of his body.

I can describe it no other way than to say it just felt right.  To be there in that room, surrounded by those people, with that little boy on my lap, praising God and praying.  So much had come together to make that moment possible and I knew there was nowhere else I was supposed to be.  There were no other people I should have been with.  There was nothing different that I should have been doing. 

The assurance and peace I felt were unambiguous. 

I am more than familiar with uncertainty and feeling like I have no idea what I’m doing in life.  For all the days and months when I have felt so unsure of the next step to take, I have grown used to the feeling but still wish and pray I didn’t have to feel it so often.

As I considered that certainty I felt in that moment in Haiti, I thought back over everything that brought me there.  Things I said “yes” to.  Opportunities I said “no” to.  Relationships I carefully nurtured.  Relationships I had to let go. 

It’s not to say that I managed to get myself to the one “right” place.  There may have an infinite number of “right” moments like that I could have taken a path to.  But in that moment God reassured me that all I need to do is continue to take the next step and trust.  God will take care of the rest.

And then someone or something at the other end of the room caught the little boy’s attention and he slid down off my lap.  The acute certainly and peace faded, but it left a remnant that I hope to hold on to even when the uncertainly overwhelms me.