Fearless

I’m alive! And I’ve missed you so much, friends.

For more than three years, this place has been a sacred one for me, where we listen and respond and share and hear “me too” in the comments and pay attention to the small ordinary moments as a way of seeing through to the bigger ones. I’ve missed joining with you here over the last few weeks, and I just had to check in this morning, though I’ve only got a few minutes.

Since I last wrote, I’ve been in the midst of projects and stepping out on foreign lands. I speak before a group of women tomorrow for whom I’ll be leading a retreat in a few more months. These are the biggest speaking things I’ve ever done.

I’ve been praying and writing and writing and praying and living and remembering God is a god of abundant supply. I am trying to open my heart wide, not hoard my energies or my gifts, and it feels most everything is tinged with newness, including the faces I see in front of me.

I’m learning to say, “God, I can’t wait to see how we’re going to do this together,” rather than “God, how will I ever be able to do this?” (Thank you to the wise one who gave me those words. They are so woven into my fibers over this last month that I don’t even know their origin anymore.)

I’ve been undone and stitched back together during this time, these last weeks, and though I’ve not had opportunity to write it here, I’m journaling my way through and plan to share more soon.

Friends, God is so faithful. Those aches of your heart, those resigned pains, those monstrous fears, those insecurities that leave canyons straight through your center….our Creator wants to heal. He is mighty to save. His presence is peace, his yoke is light. Your Maker is faithful to keep you when you feel you’re going to break and when you receive a new layer of healing and the bandages are peeled away and when you take the next step you know to take.

Hope is real as the hand in front of your face.

My mantras lately, simple as they may be are “I trust you” and “I believe – help me in my unbelief.” And “I am loved” and “thank you, God, that I get to speak hope and be light” and “thank you that I get to abide with people in pain” and “thank you that this is not about me” and “I have no idea what to do next, but you do — God, please show me.”

I guess I’ve got a lot of mantras running through my head and drum beating with my footsteps across new ground. One of the greatest freedoms in this is recognizing that my fearlessness is about a confidence that comes in the presence of God, regardless of how I feel. I actually get to choose to believe I am fearless. I am agreeing with Perfect Love when I do.

My girls are really into acrostic poems. For birthday cards, they write out the person’s name and attributes — one for each letter. Like:

M – Magnificent
A – Awesome sauce
M – Millions of hugs
A – A+  :)

I was looking over my journal this morning and found a simple acrostic that came to me as I grappled with fearlessness several weeks ago. I’m a little humbled, honestly, by sharing it because it feels so obvious or silly or something. But I’m attempting to live with faith like a child, trying to let go of perfectionism and profundity — geesh, get over yourself, Larkin.

So here you have it.

In the midst of some anxiety that was a wall and a continual prickled-arm attack, these simple letters reminded me why the heck I would do stuff that scares me so much? Amazing, isn’t it, how we learn through the opposite? Patience in the face of so much annoyance, joy in the face of pain. Fearlessness smack dab in the middle of our biggest fears — in my case, rejection and failure, if I had to break it down.

So, enough stalling…For you, dear friends, FEARLESS:

Fit with new clothes of strength because God says I am.
Earnestly seeking his face.
Aware of my need and my hope.
Resisting lies with the Word and his words to me.
Loved. Simply that.
Entering rest, not striving – eagle’s wings carry me.
Surrendering to God’s wisdom, not my own.
Stepping on paths of peace – saying yes to God and opportunities to trust and see what he will do.

I am praying for each of you this morning — that you have a startling sense of your belovedness, that you know the value of doing hard things with God’s hand in yours, that you live just a bit more fearlessly as you experience the blessed audacity of hope.

Thank you for visiting!

 

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