Be Bold!

Are you a courageous person?  I am not. I am an introvert by nature, but have pushed myself to do stuff that honestly terrifies me.

For example, I am not a fan of flying.  Big metal tube in the sky, so, so VERY unnatural. But without flying I would not have visited my grandmother in Germany, gone on a cruise to Alaska, or this year to Hawaii. My work also requires a level of travel; as I like my work, insurance and paycheck, I have figured out how to navigate a variety of airports, get on the planes, and even used “Uber” or gotten a rent a car to do what I need to do. (Let me tell you the “rent a car” driving in our nation’s capital was not a fun experience; so many more cars than this midwestern, even Chicago gal is used to, but that’s a whole other story.)

Being bold may sound easy, but during my 10+ years as an educator, there we students who seemingly boldly tried everything, and there we others, who like me cautiously dipped their toes in, and some who would not try at all.  The mind, that will "to do" or "not do do", is so very powerful. 

God is with us in all we do, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 NIV 

God may call us, we may want to, but fear may hold us back.

Yet, in our humanness, we have real fear.  And sometimes we have fear for good reasons. 

Be Bold! Is a call to live boldly despite our fears! (Living boldly without fear is, I feel a social media lie, we still in our humanness will have fear, but with our faith, that fear does not have power over our work.)

For me being able to name my fear helps.  After my first marriage ended, I had two little boys and a whole lot of responsibility. I suffered from at times, debilitating panic attacks.  Attacks so bad that when witnessed a co-worked asked, “Are you ok, what was that?”  The fear was so real it manifested itself physically.  Thankfully, that season of my life is in the past, but it took real work to figure out how to get past the fear and be bold. In those years, when I could feel an attack coming on, breathing and grounding to the physical world helped get past the physical flight or fight response. Once that was past, I began asking myself, “What are you afraid of?”

I could not “Be Bold” until I addressed that fear.

Does naming the fear make it go away? Of course not, but it makes the fear manageable.  Naming the fear becomes a prayer, “Dear Lord, please take this fear from my heart.”

I am still not an extrovert, my introvert nature means that I need time after being out there and social, at home alone, to regroup and recharge.  But being bold at times has made my life richer.  I know I want to live as full a life as possible and that means doing things that I find hard.  Just like the kids in my classrooms, we humans are all unique, what I find hard, will NOT be the same as what you find hard, but in this human experience we probably all have times in our lives where we push ourselves to “Be Bold!”

Challenge questions:

1.      What do you really want to do?

2.     What are you afraid of?

3.     How can you name, manage and/or address fear?

4.     Where is God when we are afraid?