Courage is Relative

"I know it's something God wants me to start living out, but often it's hard to know where to start."
Very nearly a year ago, my first post here talked a little bit about courage. About how I felt like it was time for me to start telling my story - but how that took a lot more bravery than I thought I had at the time.
What fascinates me most of all is that back then, my idea of brave was to write that bit of my story. Back then, honestly, that terrified me. And, if I'm being really honest, I still really struggle with making myself vulnerable. It just doesn't come naturally to me. Learning to have the courage to be vulnerable plays a huge part in what I've been learning lately, so I'll unpack what that means in more detail another day.
The thing that's really struck me, though, as I've thought about my journey over this past year, is how much my concept of what counts as "brave" has changed. I'm doing things now that even thinking about doing twelve months ago would have had me paralysed in terror.

Robbed of All the Good Stuff

I feel like I'm breaking the rules a little bit with this post.

Fear, Peace and Singing: Week 1 of my Treasure Hunt

"For the Lord your God is living among you.

He is a mighty saviour.

He will take delight in you with gladness.

With his love, he will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs."

(Zephaniah 3:17, NLT)

I've had an interesting first week of the challenge I set myself (If you missed it, and therefore don't have a clue what I'm talking about, you can read the original post here).

The first couple of days were reasonably uneventful – going to work, coming home and so on. It wasn't until Wednesday when the first thing that I'd call noteworthy happened. I was walking down the road on a break from work, and noticed a mother walking along the opposite side of the road with a pushchair. As I got closer, I could hear her singing to the child while she walked along.

As I thought more about it, I remembered that, somewhere in the Bible, it talked about God rejoicing over us with singing. I knew it was in there somewhere, although I couldn't remember exactly where. But at that moment I had a real-life illustration of what God does for every one of us. Because He loves us.

Then, that evening on my way home, I had a car accident.