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Brave Heart

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1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Meet & encourage someone who linked up before you.

OK, are you ready? Give us your best five minutes on: BRAVE

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Brave. A big word.

When I think of brave, I think of standing up for what is right….even if forced to stand alone.

There are many times that I can recall, times when my stomach was in a knot and I thought I would be sick from the stress of it all. Being “the voice” isn’t easy. Sometimes people got angry at me. At other times I feared ridicule. Being brave really wasn’t on my list of things that I wanted to do.

Speaking out and speaking up.

If I don’t, than who?

When I need to be brave in the midst of fear, I think of Esther. She was scared to go before the king. If she angered him, she could easily have been killed…..but, she went, knowing God was with her.

He is with me too.

And aren’t we all at these places in our lives for such a time as this?

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”  Esther 4:14 NIV

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Do I Want To Change The Story?

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I have mentioned that I am reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. After going through the first chapter, and discussing it with the book club, here are some of my insights.

Even if you haven’t read the book, I’m sure you can relate.

(pg. 14) “Does God really love me? If He truly, deeply loves me, why does He withhold that which I believe will fully nourish me? Why do I live in this sense of rejection, of less than, of pain? Does He not want me to be happy?

I admit I have that thought sometimes. On days that I presume that I know so much more than God, I’m sure that my plan will work. If He would only allow me to have my way, everything would work out for me. I would live happily ever after. Doesn’t He love me enough to let me do this on my own? Why can’t He just let me? Doesn’t He want me to be happy?

In my mind I have it figured out, but….in my heart I don’t really feel it. My heart knows that I am not capable of writing my own story. I am the same one who is scared of mice, burns toast, and is directionally challenged. I can’t handle the most basic things of life and I know I am helpless to even try with the harder things. I fail. Without Him, I fail. Every. Single. Time.

And yet, I still want the control. The ability to run my story, my way. I want to stamp my life with, I CAN. I WILL. I KNOW. I DID. I want to be in the driver’s seat of my own destiny. My life map spread out before me. MY voice, the one giving directions through the GPS of my story.

My hubris knows no bounds.

(pg. 15) “Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.”

If I’m completely honest with myself. Really honest…isn’t that how I feel? How about you?

The life we live, is hardly the life we planned. We wonder if there isn’t something more in the 24 hours a day? When years turn into decades, do we look back with gratitude? Or grief?Peace or regret?

(pg. 21) As Mrs. Voskamp tells the story of her brother-in-law, a man and his wife that lost two of their young sons to a genetic disease. She struggled with her nephew’s deaths. She told this grieving father, if it were up to her….she would write the story differently. He replied, “Just that maybe…maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds.”

It’s true. I don’t know what the ending holds.

God does. He knows.

I could attempt my own story. I could fight. I could scratch and claw my way through life. Constantly grabbing back, what I feel is mine to have. Wishing…screaming….for things to be different.

If I do that, I will miss the things. The small things. The every day things. The things that bring joy. If my eyes are riveted, by pride, to all I do not have, I will completely miss all that I do have. I will miss all the ways that God has said yes to me. There is peace and joy in the every day…if I deliberately take the time to see it. And thank God for it.

 

 

 

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