Awesome Isn't Afraid

Remedios Varo Personaje

There are days when I am afraid.  Afraid of the noises in the dark, the ones that only occur when my husband isn’t home.  Afraid of something happening at the school (I’ve had my fair share of calls from the nurse’s office), particularly when I’m over 45 minutes away.  Fear of time slipping by too quickly.  Fear of not accomplishing what I want to in my short time in this place. 

But when I gaze long and hard into the crux of those fears, what stands so plainly in sight is: I am afraid of failing.  Scared of not being a good enough mom, wife, friend, student, minister, daughter; a not good enough version of me.

In the quiet moments when these fears sidle up to me, curling glacial tendrils around my restless hands, in the times when I’m weary and doubting, I default to what’s easiest; I do what’s safest.  I purpose to NOT TRY.  I am a spectacular quitter.  I can avoid the hard things with the finesse of an ostrich.  I am very good at walking away from challenges.

But, I don’t see that in the life that Jesus calls me to.  I know that my quitting is my own hand, suffocating my Awesome.  Yes, I am going to fail.  Epically.  BUT GOD, whose strength is manifested in my weakness, who uses the foolish to shame the wise, who knowing my propensity for imperfection sent his only son to die on my behalf; but God loves me yet.  Delights in me still.  And in the trying, in staying in the fight, I become stronger.  I am forged into a closer likeness of Christ.  I am more fully me, the me he created me to be, than when I stick my head in the sand and let life, opportunity, pass me by. 

Today, I resolve to abandon my fears and live my life thusly:       

I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.

~Dawna Markova

Join me.  Step out into the adventure of a life fully lived, completely abandoned to love, and fully embodying your own, unique Awesome.  Pluck your Awesome from out of the sand; be you, to the fullest.  And allow it to break forth, and sing.