Brave Day 11
Choose His Brave

Job 42
Psalm 23
Psalm 27

Honest confession, I’ve tried for over 3 months to write this post. Countless “fresh starts” with new pages open wide for me to talk about being Brave in the face of death, disaster, and dismantled dreams.

But every fresh start hasn’t ended with a finished product.
Maybe that’s the point.

Sometimes walking with boldness and living Brave, the way Christ has called us, means that we can’t see the outcome.
It’s a huge unknown.
Bravery isn’t dependent on our circumstances, what we can control (or can’t), and all the massive unknowns, it’s about walking forward anyways and leaning into the invisible God because He’s the Almighty and we….aren’t.

It was a Tuesday night in early March. As a family, we had been celebrating the little life growing quickly inside my womb for weeks. We’d spread the news with such happiness, dreamed of re-doing the nursery, shared giddy grins and caressed my swollen tummy. But that Tuesday night, the bleeding didn’t stop.
And I knew… I knew my son’s life was over.
The next day, my husband and I saw his little body, so perfectly formed,
but lifeless on a dark screen.
I felt like my own heart had stopped beating. The agony of losing life, of knowing death reigned where life had thrived just days earlier.

This was going to be our last baby. We already had 5 beautiful, precious children, but had both felt God nudging us to try for one more. But, Elijah James was the son we never got to see. His were the feet we never tickled. His were the fingers that we never touched.

We gathered our other children around us that day and told them about their brother’s life and sudden death. We wept. We embraced. The pain was so raw and deep and surreal. In the weeks that followed, my husband started talking about trying again for another baby.

I refused.
I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t risk losing again.
I couldn’t possibly walk this path again.
The pain was too much, the unknown too great.

But then, God whispered.
And I found out that true bravery is never about the sense of courage we can somehow muster up inside ourselves, but rather about knowing the deep, abiding love of a Father who knows what it’s like to watch His own Son breath his last.

God beckoned me into another’s story of loss.
Deep loss.
Finances, health, home, relationships, status, and….children, multiple children.
This person suffered significant loss, but his story didn’t end there.
There came a point in his life, after he walked through the grief, after he waded into the mess of pain and hurt and raw emotion with his God, that Job had a choice to make. Walk into fear, clutching the bravery of a God he knew was good, or. Just. Stop.

Job tried again. On purpose.
He lay with his wife and she conceived again, multiple times over.
He put his hand to the plow again, and received more than ever before.
He faced his friends, prayed for them, and relationships were restored.
He chose bravery, not because his circumstances were awesome or because he could see the end of the story, but because God Was Enough.

I was broken by Job’s story.
And, wrapped up in the arms of the loving, tender Father whom I knew was so good,
I chose to lean into His bravery instead of my own understanding.
I chose His Brave.

Today, every time I scoop up my little Isaac, who was given to us after Elijah, I’m reminded of redemption.
I see Brave.
I call him my tiny warrior.
Not because he’s especially heroic, but because I know my God IS!

Living brave looks different on different people at different times, but the kind of bravery that sustains in the face of fear and brings redemption on the other side, will always, always, always be found in the un-plumbable depths of the Lord God Almighty.

Today, let His bravery enfold you.
Choose Him!
Even when…..No, especially when you can’t see the end, or count the goal posts, or tally all the end marks.
Let His Bravery Lead!
Choose His Brave!

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