![\"Brave](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/The.png?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But in this past week, I have been drawn to this song<\/a>, entitled \u201cYou Make Me Brave.\u201d Here are some of the lyrics:<\/p>\n As Your love, <\/em> I have heard You call my name<\/em> You make me brave\u2028<\/em> Those words remind me of the words of the One who called Joshua to be \u201cstrong and courageous\u201d (Joshua 1:9), the words of the One who says that His \u201cperfect love casts out fear\u201d (1 John 4:18) and the One whose words tell me that I am like the matriarch Sarah, if I \u201cdo good and do not fear anything that is frightening\u201d (1 Peter 3:6).\u00a0So much of Scripture is filled with the call to let go of fear and to grasp onto the love of God\u2014the only unfailing love that fills us with courage even as He calls us into new and challenging things.<\/p>\n And as I\u2019ve been thinking about bravery, I feel like God has gently shown me that I have<\/em> been brave during this last year. Not in ways that anyone else would notice\u2014I have not run into any burning houses or jumped from any helicopters. But I have realized that these last fifteen months of my life\u2014becoming a mama\u2014have required me to be braver than I ever thought I could be.<\/strong> I\u2019ve written before<\/a>, but the transition into motherhood wasn\u2019t easy for me<\/a>. I had no idea how it would change everything in my life all at once–and remember, change isn’t easy for me. But, the love of God upheld me. And mothering Ella is simultaneously the most wonderful and the most crazy thing I\u2019ve ever done.<\/p>\n Every day I realize, afresh, that no one else can be her mother. And that requires great bravery from me\u2014to keep saying yes.<\/strong><\/p>\n Every day, even when I feel like I have very little in my own tank, I say yes to Jesus. And He\u2014He<\/em> is the one who makes me brave. He is the one who enables me to say yes again to the responsibility and yes to the joy and yes to the exhaustion and yes to the love and yes to the consistency and yes to the laughter and yes to the constant reality is life as a mom. It is costing much of me to be a present, loving mother. I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way. But some days, it is a brave choice for me to show up and love and serve and giggle and clothe and bathe and feed again, one day at a time.<\/strong><\/p>\n So, to my fellow mamas: you might not be saving the world today, but you are brave<\/em>. You are raising and loving and serving a little life\u2014or several little lives\u2014and Jesus knows the bravery that requires. He knows the cost.<\/strong> What may not look like much to the outside world\u2014making meals, wiping bottoms, changing clothes, cleaning up Cheerios\u2014looks like bravery from Heaven\u2019s perspective. You are brave for showing up again today, for not pulling your heart out of this beautiful and costly work of mothering.<\/strong> You can be strong and courageous, and you can let His love cast out your fear\u2014because Christ is with you and in you.<\/p>\n He is our brave.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I do not think of myself as a naturally brave person. I\u2019ve never been bungee jumping or sky diving\u2014and I have zero desire to do so. I like knowing what\u2019s coming at me, and I prefer having a life that\u2019s fairly scheduled. I\u2019m not a big fan of change. I\u2019ve never done anything particularly heroic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,13,4,5,133,1],"tags":[57,178,182,177,61,34,52,179,176,66,58,180,181],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about","category-baby","category-god","category-life","category-parenting","category-uncategorized","tag-baby-2","tag-be-you-bravely","tag-bethel-music","tag-brave","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-jesus","tag-keep-your-heart-alive","tag-mom","tag-motherhood","tag-newborn","tag-saying-yes","tag-you-make-me-brave","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/The.png?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":917,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n in wave after wave\u2028<\/em>
\n Crashes over me, <\/em>
\n crashes over me\u2028<\/em>
\n For You are for us\u2028<\/em>
\n You are not against us\u2028<\/em>
\n Champion of Heaven\u2028<\/em>
\n You made a way for all to enter in<\/em><\/p>\n
\n \u2028I have heard the song of love that You sing\u2028<\/em>
\n So I will let You draw me out beyond the shore\u2028<\/em>
\n Into Your grace\u2028<\/em>
\n Into Your grace<\/em><\/p>\n
\n You make me brave\u2028<\/em>
\n You call me out beyond the shore into the waves\u2028<\/em>
\n You make me brave\u2028<\/em>
\n You make me brave\u2028<\/em>
\n No fear can hinder now the love that made a way<\/em><\/p>\n