Brave and Genuine

Two things I long to be are brave and genuine. I feel God asking me to hold both of these and allow him to work them into me through obedience.

The opposite of being brave and genuine is being fearful and fake. Wow, I am often more fearful and fake than brave and genuine. I also feel to be genuine you need to know who you are. I used to know so firmly. Then deep sorrow and loss has entered my life. And I resisted processing because of my anger at God. And in that I have been fake, and not lived into who I truly am.

Today I was hanging out with high schoolers with special needs and I felt memories of my little buddy who passed away last year and my heart ached for him and his family. I remembered these beautiful memories of reading Puppies in the Snow, labeling body parts, teaching him to go potty in the toilet. I dreamed about him the other day and it was so real I forgot the reality of his loss.

This memory reminds me of my desire to push God away, but also a memory that shows me more of who God is and I am. God loved the little guy. God loves me loving him. God loves me being brave and genuine in facing the loss and brokenness of this world. People should not die. Sitting in the pain and devastation of loss is being both brave and genuine and it further shapes me into the woman of maturity that God wants me to be.

What a gift life is. What a gift children with special needs are to me. I see a joy in them that I see no where else. But to engage the joy, I now have to engage the loss. My call is to be brave and genuine.