Fearless

A couple of my girlfriends and I have this saying… “What is life?” that we have been obnoxiously over using with each other in the most beautiful way the past several weeks. Sometimes I feel like I am standing on the side of a fast moving train and watching car after car fly by and it’s full of jewels and gold. Is this real life? When is the crash coming? (that’s my INTJ part kicking in – ever the logical thinker).

My year has been well documented for my readers. The ups, the downs, the real downs… you get my drift. I find myself right now in a season of bliss. Yet, I am keenly aware that any of this could be snatched away from me at any time. What’s good can be gone tomorrow. What’s whole can be broken in one decision. It’s my responsibility to myself and to everyone else in my life to keep myself together no matter what happens. Because, life is always good… it may not always be perfect, things may not always be going our way, but if we just look outside our own circumstances we see that the sun rises new every morning and regardless of our current situations… life. is. good.  I learned a lot about life this year and what I know is that no matter how perfect or good life is going… it can be snuffed out in a heartbeat.

So, what does that mean? Well, some of us have lived with these thoughts before and handled them with a sense of fear and insecurity and anxiousness. Fear. Fear ruled us. But, no more. When you cast fear out from your life, when you refuse to settle for anything less than the best… magical things can happen. There have been so many times in my life where I have been grappling, struggling, and running around a circular room beating on every door I could find hoping God would just open one up and things would feel “right”. It’s when I finally gave up trying to figure my own life out that God didn’t just open one door… He opened many of them. Boom! Boom! Boom! – they have been flying open.

What are we capable of when we are fearless? We are capable of great love, amazing opportunity, insurmountable forgiveness, reconciliation, selflessness. We are stripped of the insecurities our pasts no matter how difficult some of our stories may be. We no longer feel the need to look to our past for comfort but find comfort in the hope of a new future. Comfort in the promise of His goodness to us when we empty our hands of want, jealousy, selfishness, hate, and confusion. Our hands are left to be filled with grace, love, and opportunity to take our past stories to propel those around us into similar fates. The fate of new lives.

If someone had told me 8 months ago what my life would be look like right now I would never have believed them. I had to go through every single moment to get to where I am now or I would never be here. That makes every struggle worth it. I wouldn’t take one thing back because this life really feels like my life – for the first time ever.

I keep seeing this meme: “Don’t skip the struggle.” And, don’t. If you’re struggling, don’t sit there and take it – keep going. Wallow through the mud, swim the muck, fight the good fight. The results will come. The changes will happen. It’ll be hard at times – very hard. So hard you’ll want to give up and snap back into your old habits. But, you don’t quit. You won’t quit.

 

The seasons are changing. Life is about to get crazy amazing if you just let it happen. Have faith. Don’t give up. Ever. And, never, ever, ever settle.