We don't know where we're going. We can't know. We can only cling to Faith's tiny candle, which does not give us knowledge but illuminates our deep believing. Believing in the goodness of a God Who knows us and is for us. Believing that God's plans are beyond our understanding but that God always has a purpose for our lives. For everything. Even our terrible, gnawing suffering that's tearing us apart.
But it doesn't always seem to help to believe that when we're walking and hurting and crying. Not now, it doesn't help. We feel abandoned: Where are You, God? But we can't avoid the pain. We have to keep walking, step by step, sharp psychic knives slashing our feet like the psychic knives the Little Mermaid endured when, silent, she danced before the Prince in the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale before Disney took the real suffering out of her story and made it meaningless.
But Faith sends Courage to wait in the dark for us, and envelop us in holy armor so we can fight and triumph over the specters that wait in the darkness to attack us: self-doubt, self-pity, self-hatred, bitterness, fear that we're weak, that we'll succumb to battle fatigue. But, as novelist Juliet Marillier observes, "Fear is no winner of battles."
Courage invigorates us to take each step Believing in God and Believing in ourselves. Believing in the God Who lives within us and joyfully whispers to us about who we REALLY are:
Beautiful and Powerful with God's Glory
Chosen to Exist by God
Talented, a Creator like God
Unique, carrying Divine DNA
Irreplaceable with God's Purpose Waiting Within
Son - Daughter of God
Beloved by God
Precious, for God-in-Jesus died to set us free from all that attacks us now.
Courage gives us the strength of lions to stay the path, keep to the journey, to eventually heal in our souls. Because God needs us. God needs us to keep loving even while we're hurting. To give understanding gentleness, even when we're ravaged inside. To welcome His inner peace so we can BE a candle to light our part of His kingdom.
We begin as a candle. We become a roaring Fire of the Holy Spirit. That is the journey. That is the Path out of darkness. God walks the path with us to bring us out into the Full Light, into goodness, because God will ALWAYS make all things new and give us new life. Believe it. Trust Him.
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