Be Brave

As you travel around NYC and as you continue to heal and figure out life together,

 I am praying for you to be brave.... 

sending you much love and praying for traveling mercies...

Because the World Can Get Dark 

& We Really Need You:

 5 Ways to Keep Being Brave

"Freedom rings and won’t be silenced — freedom that calls out the false freedom that a man can do whatever he likes, and rings of the true freedom, that gives a man the freedom to do what is right.

Freedom that grace can be found and hope rises here and God is not defined by time, or fixed by boundaries, or confined to expectations, or forecasts, or pundits, or boxes.

The greatest freedom we have is the freedom to come right to God at any time.

Let the headlines hurl the news, but we can feel the warmth of it on the nape of our bared, bowed necks, we can feel the beating warmth of it pounding like a victory march in the chambers of our praying hearts:

There is always a light that shatters the dark, that shards the dark, 

that pierces the cowardly dark right to the wall of an eternal pit,

and the diseased doomed to death  —-  they walk straight out of hospitals.

And the pleading streets of pain  —-  they feel justice roll & hope run like water,

and the warring wounds of this world  —-  they are dressed with a world of tender prayer,

and you can bet that There. Is. A. Light. in every single darkness

and the darkness can never extinguish it, the darkness can never smother it, the darkness can never, ever, no

matter what, suffocate the relentless coming of an emancipating Light.

And we will never stop being the boldface brave who show up when it’d be easier to give up,
who go do hard & holy things when it’d be easier to just go do happy things,
who do not quit when we don’t know how to keep going on.

You can hear it about this time of September, breathing warm courage into our exhausted places: “Just Call to Me. I guarantee I will answer you. I will make you strong & brave.” (Ps.138:3)

Be Brave. Hold out your Light to hold back the flood of dark. 

Be Brave. Your bravery wins a thousand battles you can’t see because your bravery strengthens a thousand others to win their battles too. 

Be Brave. And do not pray for the hard thing to go away. But pray for a bravery to come that’s bigger than the hard thing.

Be Brave. There are angels closer than you know. 

The glads on the table stand tall. And out across the lawn, you can see it —how there are shadows brushing close to the light — shadows of wings."  

–Ann Voskamp