What Exactly Does It Mean To Be Brave?

Where is the starting line? Where exactly does the first step of the journey to brave begin? I used to think that the journey to brave was all about fighting and scrapping your way to the top.  That it was about being powerful and competitive despite the odds. That it was about pushing your way forward to the top of the mountain despite obstacles.  After all, that's what the shows on TV tell us about bravery.  

But, what I know now is that sometimes the best way to be brave is to let go. To NOT fight. To allow your life to take you on its own journey - without insisting on your own way.

What I know now is THAT is where true bravery lies. Not in the fight, but in the surrender.
One of my favorite songs talks about the power of the moment when you stop holding on and just allow yourself to be held. The world tells us that we have to hold on and grasp so hard to what we want.  Perhaps true bravery is in the letting go and in allowing others around you to hold you while you take a step out on faith without knowing exactly where you are going. Perhaps it is in allowing your higher power to move you where He wants to move you and to use you how He wants to use you, even if it doesn't make sense at the time.

I have learned that true bravery is found in the courage to be vulnerable.

The other day as I was on my own journey to celebrate the first birthday of a very special one-year-old little girl, I was in the car and I heard my GPS say, “GPS signal lost”.

Typically, being the plan-it-all-out kinda girl, that would've caused me some distress. But something hit me that day when I heard that monotone voice on my GPS.

What I know now is that sometimes your GPS signal being lost is the best thing that can happen to you. Because sometimes, you have to get lost in order to find your way.

So, as I turn the pages to the next chapter of my life, it is my hope that I can live less out of my calendar of my own to-do’s and wish list of worldly accomplishments and more in the present beauty of everyday life. To live bravely by not having it all planned out and being okay with that. And to embrace both my gifts and my vulnerabilities so that, just perhaps, my story can help someone else on their journey to brave.  

-Dedicated to Amanda Ireland Ward and Lindy Beauregard who taught me so much about being brave and stepping out on faith.  Your legacy lives on.