Originally published Monday, 01 June 2015.
9:52. He's walking right into that situation now, the one that breaks our hearts. Justin and I are together, sitting on a deck in our town, clinging to God, having to trust Him in a situation that is so out of our control. I have a poster I rolled up into a cardboard tube and gave to Justin for Valentine's Day, meaning to get it matted and framed. It quotes Theodore Roosevelt, "Dare Mighty Things" I need to get that poster up on our family room wall.
For today, in our Silicon Valley town, on the deck of a quiet coffee shop, as we sit in the unusually frigid morning and sip coffee already cold, Justin and I feel like parenting is a lot like daring mighty things. (Being 13 years old and going to junior high school and being in seventh grade is not an experience I want to ever relive. Do you?) So we lean on God with everything we have because that is all we can ever do.
Daring to do any mighty thing is a lot like living any ordinary day.
What makes the day mighty is the way we dare approach it. In vulnerability. In fragility. In confidence: My God's got this. My God's got this.
I type these words to you from the deck of the coffee shop during the forty-five minutes of a junior high third period class that have lasted forever. Our son is doing the mighty thing that we are so proud of him for being willing to do. We don't know the outcome. And we tell ourselves that's okay.
We have to believe, good outcome or not, our God stays before us. We must only dare to choose Him.
Trusting in God's strength more than our own is our mighty thing.
The Lord is the One who will go before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged (Deuteronomy 31:8).
We pray these words, Moses's words to Joshua, over our son before he walks to school. He tucks the verse into his backpack.
Oh, God, you've got this. You've got him. You've got this.
We can dare any mighty-ordinary thing with our mighty-extraordinary God.
I type these words to you because I believe you, my sisters here, understand these words. You are the ones who follow your God, standing fast, daring to do the mighty things with Him who knows the way.
We don't know the outcome of many prayers, sometimes. But we trust that God is good. The outcome is His. We just choose Him. We dare to do mighty things.
God is with us in the struggles with family and children and marriages and chemical addictions and abuse. He is with us in the chronic illnesses, the cancer and the diagnoses that are devastating and seem to never change. God, you've got this. You've got this.
Justin reminds me it's these choices we get in life to do the right thing, to do the brave thing, that show us who we are and who we trust. Each choice we make this day, and the next, shapes us into who we are. As children of God--children who are parents and friends and sisters and wives--we get to make choices that shape who we are.
Let's stand together, sisters, this day, clinging to the God who is strong and mighty and present and cares about each and every cry of our heart. Let's trust in Him more than in any outcome. Let's trust in Him more than our own strength.
Daring to choose God--in adversity, in fear, in uncertainty, in sickness, in despair, in joy, in peace, in hope, in all things--is our one and only mighty thing.
That's the kind of life I want to live.
Are you with me? Daring mighty things?
I think there's no other mighty thing in this life more important to do.
What mighty thing do you get to dare right now?
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