Eggs. Glow sticks. Fire alarms. Sometimes things need to be broken to be more effective.

There are always things that stay with you long after they were ever said. About six years ago some one told me that one of the things she struggled with most was broken youth workers ministering to broken kids. At the time I saw what she meant, if people responsible for working with hurting young people were too preoccupied with their own hurt, then they weren’t going to be much use. Aside from anything, she argued that it could be selfish, hurting broken people can sometimes only see their own pain, making the young person’s hurt second priority. It makes sense, a youth worker charged with ministering to broken, bereaved, depressed, fearful and abused young people isn’t going to be able to fully do that if they themselves are near nervous breakdown.

But in the six years since this was said to me, I’ve had time to reflect on this idea. And I’m not going to go as far as saying that I think you can’t be a good youth worker (or minister of any sort) if you’ve not had something traumatic happen that has broken you, but I would say that I wonder if there is an element of “breaking” to make someone ready for ministry and I definitely  don’t believe that being broken means that you can’t be useful.

While studying youth work at uni there were a few modules and lectures that proved to be a struggle for me personally. Learning about childhood and adolescent trauma and their effect on development was difficult because I questioned whether everything I was learning was true for my own case of adolescent trauma. But the thing that was so much more painful for me was certain class mates discussing themes that were so prevalent in reality for me, in detached, theoretical and almost cold ways. I struggled with the idea of them talking about trauma and its effect almost as if it were an equation; if X happens then this young person will be Y and Z. Sure they were sympathetic and many could empathise, but it hurt to hear them talk about it because I knew what it felt like to be broken in some of the ways we were learning about.

This strong and somewhat unexpected reaction was what first made me question this idea of brokenness being bad in ministry. If people discussing trauma without being broken in that way themselves felt so wrong for me, I questioned if young people similarly struggled with seemingly sorted, together and whole youth workers analysing their pain.

Was being broken really that bad?

With this thought in mind, I began work on writing and publishing what became my book. Material born of pain, disappointment and ultimately brokenness. My voice, sewn through those pages, attempting to disagree with what I’d heard six years previously. If there is one review of that work that matters most to me, it is a friend who once said: “There are things in there that I’d never think about, but you know because you’ve been through it.”

Sometimes things get broken and there is no purpose. There is only pointless destruction, devastation and demolishing. But sometimes there can be a purpose, we can make a point, and in our brokenness we can reach out and hold the hand of another broken person and simply say “Me too.”

What if its not just reaching out of brokenness that’s the point, what about being broken in preparation for other things?  I am just coming out of a prolonged time of brokenness. A time when I was professionally smashed apart and personally couldn’t put the pieces back together. But now I realise that perhaps I couldn’t put the pieces back together because I wanted to put them back in the same way, when the reason I was broken was to get rid of some bits and create something even better out of the leftovers. I believe I was broken “for such a time as this”, to be here holding all the broken bits of my career, vocation, spirituality, faith and confidence, and have them crafted into something new. This couldn’t have happened if I was the same whole person I was two years ago.

I hear what some of you might be thinking, “Sure Lex, brokenness is a really useful tool in ministry. Sure you’re not just using it as an excuse for not being fully healed from your junk?” I’m sure there is an element of that in there for me, an element of relief that I don’t need to be perfectly restored to healing to carry on in ministry. But I suggest that working out of and because of brokenness is in fact a biblical, theological principle.

What did Jesus say to his disciples during the last supper, telling them to remember each time they shared that meal, that we repeat each time we recite the liturgy of the Eucharist? This is my body, broken for you. In the utter and complete brokenness of our sin we couldn’t be reached. Only Jesus becoming broken himself made a way for us.

From Jesus’ brokenness came our justification, redemption and salvation. Sometimes broken works best.

So let me try to make a point and sum everything up. Like I said at the start, I’m not trying to say that effective ministers need to have been through trauma, I’m not saying that you have to be broken to connect with hurting people, and I’m really, really not saying that we shouldn’t strive for healing and wholeness; but I am arguing that it’s not one or the other. As with so many things in spirituality it’s a ‘both and’ kinda thing; you can be both broken and ministering to other people. And why? Because out of the ultimate act of brokenness, out of death, came our source of healing. Because of Jesus brokenness, we can be whole.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of kintsukuroi (and if you’re on Pinterest or Tumblr you probably will have done!), the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer. This technique coming with the understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. Broken is not a synonym for weak and useless. Sometimes broken works best.

I wonder if you feel broken, I wonder if you’re sitting amongst some rubble worrying that you will never be whole again and because of your brokenness feel useless to other people. Today, I pray for the broken people, the utterly destroyed people who’ve lost pieces of themselves for ever, that we would know healing in our broken places. That we would relate to Jesus’ ultimate act of brokenness and see that through it we can be whole. That we would see other broken people ministering to us, reaching out a hand to say “Me too”. That we might come to understand that we may have been broken in preparation for a specific time or reason. And that above all, we would be comforted that sometimes broken really does work best.

Lex xx

We’re green.  Liturgically speaking I mean, I’m not suggesting we’re all a bit queasy.

This greenness denotes ordinary time, and it is this idea of ordinary time that I’ve been reflecting on over the last couple of weeks.

Around half of the church’s year is spent in green, realising that while, when you add up all the various festivals or preparation times together, we spend six months in “special” time, there is an equal amount of time that is spent in the unnamed, uncelebrated, seemingly mundane ordinary time. And I think there is a real message for life in there for us.

A few months ago a friend first used this idea of liturgical colours to describe the mood of her life, and I really liked the idea. Describing yourself as being in a green , “ordinary time” conjures this wonderful image of chugging along, contentedly getting on with the busyness of life, and while there may not be much to specifically celebrate, there is equally little to lament. While the church may be a half and half split, I think most of us live the majority of our lives in ordinary time. Days, weeks, months can go by without needing to get those white alter cloths of celebration out. And while that may seem a little boring, at least we’re not wearing the purple of suffering.

This week I will deliver an assembly about being thankful for boring days, days that are neither happy or sad but just rather ordinary (I’m using champagne, a tissue and a potato as my props) and I think this idea of ordinary time ties in here. Its great when its holiday time, when its Christmas day and there’s loads to smile about  and it is equally important that our lives be seasoned with some sadness (the latest Disney hit teaching the very important lesson that we are allowed to be sad and can learn lots from sadness), but I think we learn even more from the long stretches of potato days. When there’s nothing special going on and it’s just Tuesday. It is on those potato days when we learn to be thankful for the ordinary, content to dwell in the mundane. I think the challenge for people is that, with the increase of connection via social media and the sharing of the minutia (I know I am as guilty as any here) of our lives,  people having a potato day are bombarded by champagne and tissues and can end up begrudging others their celebrations and lamentations. Maybe what we all need to be doing on Facebook is sharing and celebrating the ordinary. How good would a host of “Life’s neither exhilarating nor crap and I kinda like potatoes” statuses make us all feel?

But if I’m here championing ordinary time, why on earth then is today’s blog called ‘If you feel too much’? Surely it should be more “when you’re feeling just enough”…

If you feel too much is the title of a published collection of blogs and writings from Jamie Tworkowski (The man behind the international movement ‘To write love on her arms’, a non-profit aiming to raise awareness and support for young people struggling with depression, self harm and suicide). His argument being that often people struggling with suicidal thoughts might feel like they are “feeling too much” and need to express that excess emotion some other way.

I find myself living an awful lot of life in ordinary time, but the problem is I feel too much.

By the rest of the world’s standards I’m like a puppy. Incredibly excitable, overly sensitive and prone to  weeing on the carpet. Part of the reason I love working with teenagers so much is because we share an emotional ebb and flow. Young people have much more extreme peaks and troughs in their moods multiple times during the day, resulting in those teenage moods swings we all know. But I love them for it, because I’m there peaking and troughing along with them. If you feel too much, a mundane Wednesday afternoon in March can go from the best day of your life to the worst in the space of about an hour.

 How, then, do those of us who live life like puppies, feeling too much,  make ordinary time work?

Well I think the key lies in looking at things as if they were concentric cycles. There is one great big cycle going through the year (think of those liturgical colours again), times when there is celebration, lament and an awful lot of ordinary time. But there will be monthly cycles (Don’t be gross), weekly cycles and even daily cycles going on as well. And so while there are people for whom their daily cycle of emotion is a slow turn round the carousel, where this is little variety in emotion for days, weeks or even months at a time. There will also be those of us for whom the daily cycle sends us shooting up and plummeting down at break neck speed, on a rollercoaster of liturgical colour.

It’s not that necessarily one group feels too much and the other not enough, and neither is “right”. Its just two very different ways of feeling ordinary time.

If we think back to the afore mentioned Disney hit and ask ourselves  what ‘Inside Out’ is trying to tell us, if it is not the goodness and necessity of all our emotions? In the film, while each character is predominantly “controlled” by one particular emotion, they have all the others and each has a huge part to play. In the film Riley learns the painful lesson of how things, memories, can be happy and sad all at the same time. In growing up and becoming more emotionally intelligent Riley learns that feeling things is a really complex business.

So we live the majority of our lives in ordinary time, and for some there is contentment in this, while others feel huge guilt and boredom in the ordinary. Some are governed almost entirely by one emotion and there is little flux, while others’ emotions all get a chance to sit in the driving seat multiple times a day.

If your life is mostly the green of ordinary, delight in it and feel proud of your own personal, exceptional ordinary. Share with others your potato days, that while you may not be whooping you’re also not weeping. But if you, like me, feel like you feel too much, don’t be scolded out of it like the excitable puppy you may be. Yes our emotions may seem bigger and messier, but as Riley learns, feeling  is a complex thing that looks different for us all.

I love the church for its liturgical colours, helping us twig how we might collectively be feeling, but if your personal alter needs to be a different colour, go for it. Maybe you’re not green. It’s not feeling too much or not enough… its just feeling.

Lex xx

I am one of those people, and it tends to be people in their mid twenties to thirties, who is part of the Friends generation. It seemed at some point in time (and still is the case for those lucky ducks blessed with Comedy Central) that you couldn’t turn on the TV without an episode of Friends popping out of it. We are the people for whom the words “pivot”, “lobster” and “seven” will always have a more poignant meaning (and need to be quoted). We, sacred few, know all the words to phoebe’s Christmas song…

It is impossible for me to count how many times I will have listened to that most famous theme tune, potentially getting on for thousands. But I never really listened to the words, of rather they never really meant anything to me until this summer when I was listening to a beautiful acoustic version of the song and heard them like it was the first time. 

This summer, the line “When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month or even your year” suddenly jumped out to me and kept coming back, leading me to some reflection. 
I had a bad day, leading to a bad week, which grew to a bad month and multiplied to a year that just wasn’t my year… Strictly speaking a year and a bit. And it’s only now that I am beginning to poke my head out of the other side of this bad year that I can begin to make sense of what on earth just happened. 

Of course I’ve had times of wilderness before, I have known extended periods of desperate lows and it’s not like there weren’t any good times during this bad year (book publishing and coming out being ecstatically wonderful high points); but this felt really different, the sadness and hopelessness were fiercely unrelenting. I was in the pit, wandering through the valley from April 2014 to July 2015. 

But as I say, I am popping my head out the other side, to coin a quote I’ve already used in a blog, “As bad as things were before, that’s how good they became”. Life is full of new starts at the moment and with those new starts comes fresh hope and renewed promise. For the first time in a year there is a rightness to what I’m doing and it feels like the sun is dawning after a very long night or I’m taking that first breath of fresh air after coming up from water.

But neither the crippling sadness nor wonderful newness is exactly what I want to write about today. If I take us back to the line of the song that started me reflecting, when it hasn’t been your year (or day, or week, or month) what should we do? Well, as those now timeless words of the chorus tell us, the friend singing the song pledges to be there for the person struggling. Yes they say they will be there for you, when the rain starts to pour, like they’ve been before and just as you are for them, they will be there.

Quite a promise when you think about it, and it is precisely this promise that is the thing I have been reflecting on and feel prompted to write about. It is one thing to say that you’ll be there for someone when they have a bad day. When a little act of kindness or night in with a bottle of wine putting the world to rights can maybe solve the problem. But it is quite another thing entirely to promise you’ll be there and continue to be there for someone when the sadness stretches further than either of you can see, when your efforts seem to be making little difference and their hopelessness makes them a pretty tough person to love.

But it is perhaps that “being there” that makes the most difference. Maybe loving someone and being there for them through a year, or even a decade, that isn’t going their way is the best thing you will ever do. It’s relatively easy to stand by someone during a tough week, harder in a tough couple of months, but so many will give up and fall away during those prolonged periods of sadness and pouring rain, but that is when people need their friends to step up and stand firm most of all.

That said, this isn’t a preachy blog, far from it. This is a blog of gratitude to some truly awe inspiring friends of mine who have done just that. Stood by me while the rain poured, things weren’t any better for months on end and I became a pretty tough person to love at times. So, if you’ll forgive me, I’d like to end with something of an open letter…

To my F.R.I.E.N.D.S

It got tough there for a while, there were points where I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to feel normal and things would ever be right again. I’m sorry for being disinterested, self absorbed and monosyllabic.

Thank you for not ever requiring me to be ok. Thank you for accepting whatever mood I was in. Thank you for remembering who I was and always believing that you would see her again. Thank you for celebrating in the little triumphs and commiserating in the losses. Thank you for crying with, smiling instead of and praying for me. Thank you to those who gave me mantras, tips and advice to get me through. Thank you for loving me out of the valley.

Thank you for being there for me, consistently, faithfully and steadfastly.

And now, that the year that wasn’t mine is over, that I’m starting to see clearly again, that I’ve remembered who Lex is, allow me to make a promise to you.

If ever there should be a day that is bad, if there’s a tough week, if a month just goes wrong, and if an entire year descends into hopelessness and sadness that is just too much; know that I will be there, when your rain pours, like I’ve been able to be in the past, like you’ve upheld me during the last 15 months, I will be there for you.

Lex xx

“I’m not ok with a mediocre job, I’m not ok with a mediocre apartment, I’m not ok with a mediocre life!!” 

As I’ve mentioned before, I live my life through quotes from film and TV. I wonder if anyone knew who I was quoting with today’s opening line? Anyone? It was Bruce, from Bruce Almighty. Yes, before Bruce has his divine encounter and is endowed with God’s power, he’s pretty disappointed with his lot in life. Being overlooked for promotion, not getting the opportunities he thinks he deserves, not having a big enough apartment and to top it all off a dog who refuses to be toilet trained! Bruce decides his life is mediocre and he’s not best pleased about how things have turned out, he’s not exactly angry about it… Just sorely disappointed. 

I wonder if the particularly geekily inclined amongst you can fill in the next line that follows Bruce’s rant, the line his girlfriend replies with? “So that’s what you think we have? A mediocre life?” 

When we’re disappointed our world view suddenly becomes about a thousand times smaller. All we can see is us, our situation and all the crappy ways it’s hasn’t panned out the way we wanted.

Being bitterly disappointed can make us pretty selfish. 

For the last year and a half I’ve been really disappointed. More disappointed than I think I’ve ever been in my life. At first I was angry, raging about how things turned out but that anger burnt itself out. I’m not angry anymore, just disappointed… And as any of us who has ever been told off with those words knows, that’s way worse!! 

When you first fill in a job application, even before you get a interview, you imagine. You dream of what might be, what could happen, what life might look like if things go to the plans you’re beginning to make. If you then add it into that mix the feeling that God seems to be calling you to that position and others are confirming that feeling of call, and those dreams become bigger. The imagination goes into overdrive and the plans ever more elaborate. 

Well then, what happens if the bubble bursts? If the plans don’t work out, if the many feelings that were there weren’t actually right and it wasn’t to be? What happens is gut wrenching, plummeting, bitter disappointment. 

And as I said, suddenly your world, your view, your expectations get smaller. Suddenly you can’t see beyond the disappointment. All you can see is what was supposed to be, but isn’t. All you can think about is what should have been, but can’t be. All you can hold on to is what you wanted and needed, but won’t ever have. And it makes you selfish, not through wanting to be, but just because if you’re focussing on you and your shattered dreams, then there’s not much room for much else! 

Time and time again over the last year and a half I’ve found myself almost quoting Bruce when praying. “God I had these amazing plans, I thought WE had these amazing plans, I’m not ok with mediocre, I’m not ok with how things have turned out.” And as I say that, I can almost hear God echoing Grace’s response “So that’s what you think I’ve given you, what we have? Mediocre?” 

Disappointment forces you to focus on what you don’t have instead of all that you do. It is an attitude of want, need, lack, rather than one of gratitude. 

So I’m challenging myself. Yes I’m not angry anymore but nor do I want to be disappointed. I am choosing to focus on the word: enough.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9 we are told that God’s grace is sufficient, enough, for us. For his strength is made perfect in our weakness, our lacking, our want, our disappointment (I may have added in the extra bits, but you get the idea). What are the messages of Psalms 23 and 73, if they aren’t of God’s care, love, providence, faithfulness, grace being enough for his people, even in the very real trials, and disappointments, they face? 

So ok, I had plans, brilliant plans that would have been great, plans that I felt were God’s plans too, but they weren’t to be. But the life I’m living, the year I’ve had since and the future I’m stepping in to is far from mediocre, it’s just different. And I’m tired of being disappointed about that. I’m tired of being like a small child crying and holding out for a bit of toast they think they really wanted when there is a meal on offer!! His love, His grace, His plan is sufficient, enough, and is made perfect in my empty, disappointed hands. 

And now my prayer turns to you, I wonder if you’re disappointed. I wonder if you’ve planned for something, only for it not to come to fruition. I wonder if you’ve dreamed and hoped, only to be told no. It may have been years in the past or yesterday, disappointment is a difficult place to live in because if makes you feel mediocre. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t know any mediocre people. I know wonderful, exciting, creative, people making the best of their situations. Today I pray that you would look at your lot, your life, your situation, your future and believe that it is enough. 

Lex xx

A few people have asked about the speech that I gave at my book launch, and a few others are mentioned in it who weren’t there to hear it in person. So I thought I’d share it so people can have a read if they are interested…

In September 2010, I sat down for my pastoral catch up chat at the start of my second year of uni with Carolyn Edwards. Over the Summer I’d had this idea and ever one to be a little precocious, a year ahead of schedule and before anyone asked me to, I shared with Carolyn my dissertation proposal. This proposal that somehow had “write a book” as a plan before I got round to the task of actually writing my dissertation. Something I’m still not quite sure was a good idea. I don’t now if Carolyn remembers this conversation, but at the time I did recognise how difficult this project would be for me to complete, not only because it was a mammoth undertaking, but mainly because of how very personal it was. I said to her that it would either be “the hardest or best thing I’d ever do” and she told me that it would probably be both. How very, very right she was.

And from that first fledgling little conversation that we had, my first thank yous go to Carolyn too. As soon as I’d had this idea I knew that there was only one person who I wanted to be my dissertation tutor, partly for her expertise in  child development and pastoral care, but also because I knew I would need looking after as I wrote , and boy did you deliver Carolyn. It took a massive amount of faith to catch my vision for this project, especially as often you had to decipher it through sobs. With your calm, gentle and relentless support I never had any doubt that I’d get to the end of a project that at times was excruciating to work on. And you seemed to be in no doubt that one day it could be published. Without your input we wouldn’t be here celebrating today. Thank you.

There are some others who require thank yous for just how enthusiastic they have been the whole way along this 5 year writing and publishing journey. Those people who have been unwavering in their support and unrelenting in their encouragement that one day I would hold a copy of my book, even when writer’s block and publisher’s “Nos” seemed to mark the end of the story. Rosie, Ricky, Kim, Libbi, Kate. It has been friends and colleagues like you over the last few years who have made the journey that little bit easier. Thank you.

There are three ladies here who in very different ways have impacted my writing and therefore have helped me inch closer to this day. Alli, thank you for helping me fall in love with writing and giving me so many opportunities to do it. Yes, my drama scripts were very different to this book, but they were the first few scribbles in a life long book of stories. Not only did you encourage me to carry on writing on that day that I left Chaplin, but you have continued to encourage me by reading and commenting on various blogs along the way. Laura, thank you for teaching me how to plan. I’m not going to lie and say that I plan everything I write, but I did have some kind of plan that I stuck to while writing the book. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is leaps and bounds from where I used to be. Thanks. Catherine, my friend and mentor, over the last 9 years you have helped me to carry on using my words and express myself through them. You were subjected to the first, very poor attempt at a book and even then didn’t tell me to stop. But more importantly you have helped me to retain and rebuild a shaken faith and so today I am able to write theologically because you showed me it was ok to ask questions and not have all the answers. Thank you.

My great big, huge thanks go to my Thornton family. First for giving us such a beautiful place to have this celebration, especially the room with my favourite picture in it, the fluffy cow. But more importantly for being possibly more excited than me when I got that first email with my publishing offer in it, and the second email with the cover design. It meant so much to have colleagues, friends and community who were just as happy as me when things starting getting very exciting over the last couple of years. Agnes, Deirdre, Jane, Catherine, Lucie, Stella, Val, Jan, Issy, Frankie, Jess, Sophie, Anne. Thank you.

I am ridiculously lucky that while my family is small, we are close, both geographically and emotionally. I would not be the person I am today, celebrating the achievement I am without your love and crazy support. Thank you for letting  me take parts of our story and turn them into this story. I am also lucky to have people in my life who have adopted me and been adopted by me, there are so many faces in front of me who are part of my extended family and for the lessons that you teach me about what family and community and grace and love look like, all of which I have written about, I cannot thank you enough.

I wrote in a blog a few weeks ago about some of the happiest days of my life, and I said that I often use the bittersweet-ometre as a gauge to how good the days are. Meaning that the more bittersweet it  is that my mum is not there with us, generally the better and happier the day is. Today might just be off the chart for bitter sweetness. My mum, the eternal bookworm, who ignited in me a passion for books, would have loved today. My mum was and is the motivation for this project and it is because of her great love and light that the shadows I found myself walking in were so long. But I wouldn’t give that light back to not have the shadows, not for one second.

And finally to the one who put up with more in this project than any other. To the one who has taken my silent treatment, my anger, my blame and yet has wiped away all of my tears. To the author of my story, my eternal father and the one able to redeem the worst situation. My prayer is that this book brings glory to you. I wouldn’t have done this for anyone else.

Lex xx

I’ve got a secret… (ooh it’s been a while since I shared a secret on here, don’t worry this one isn’t quite as massive as the last!)

This particular secret needs to be put in some context, so allow me to set the scene…

A few weeks ago I had an interview. An important one for a job I really wanted. I was desperate for this to be the answer to so many prayers and rekindle in me my faith in my calling and that I could hear from God. You could say there was a lot riding on it! Well thankfully it did go well and as lots of you will already know I got the job and will be starting in September. But the secret comes in just before the interview and is one only a handful of people know thus far.

I nearly bailed.

Yep, that’s right. The interview that was really important, the one that had loads riding on, the one I really wanted and was really happy to get. I nearly didn’t go.

I drove to Berkhamsted, found the school but then couldn’t find the carpark. That darn illusive carpark has so much to answer for, it set of a panic attack of Biblical proportions. I was suddenly struck by how prestigious the surroundings were, how relatively mundane the material I’d prepared for my interview was and how I somehow already knew that they’d hate me. I phoned home in a flap telling my stepmum that I was coming home. Thankfully she managed to talk me round and convinced me to call the school and just ask where the flipping car park was!

The events of that morning got me thinking. You see one of the things that, for me at least, came with a pretty significant bereavement when I was young was a dislike of the word brave. Well, specifically being referred to as brave. There were friends, teachers and people at church who would tell me that I was so brave. I hated being called brave because, A) I didn’t really understand how I was being brave and B) I knew the truth, I wasn’t!

I’m not brave, I’m a massive coward! I’ve written blogs before about my attitude to fear and the things I’m scared of. And this incident with the interview is just testament to that fact. I’m not going to be winning any awards for bravery any time soon!

But then I continued to reflect, what does it mean to be brave? A dictionary definition is “Ready to face and endure danger or pain.” Hmmmm…

What often scares us about situations is our past experience, yes there are completely irrational fears, but what is often scarier is facing something similar to a thing in the past. Something that frightened us, put us in danger or caused us pain. I was so scared of the interview and nearly ran out on it because of my two year track record of failed interview attempts and total loss of confidence in my ability to do what I’m trained in.

There was my danger or pain, I desperately didn’t want to face any more rejection. In all honesty, I think it could have finished me off. And on that morning I wasn’t ready to face or endure it, hence the panic attack. So nope, no bravery here!

But then, we know our stories, we know just how many personally scary things there are to us and we also know the real us, the ones who aren’t ready to face the fear with courage, maybe nobody thinks they’re brave? Because we’re the ones who can feel the sweaty palms, have the butterflies and know that our knees are knocking.

But what if it’s not us that make us brave? What if it is someone greater, calling us to something greater that makes us truly brave? At Spring Harvest I fell in love with the song ‘You Make Me Brave’ from Bethel. The bridge of which says, “You make me brave, You make me brave, You call me out beyond the shore into the waves. You make me brave, You make me brave, No fear can hinder now the love that made a way.” In recent weeks the lyrics have really spoken to me about the idea of bravery and who it is that we are brave for.

Jesus’ disciples were not renown for their bravery, choosing to run away, fall asleep or say something stupid when the chips were really down. But even Peter, oh brave Peter of the denial hat-trick, walked on water when Jesus called him out into the waves.

Peter wasn’t being massively rave when he walked on water, Jesus made him brave to show the disciples his power. I wasn’t being brave when I swallowed my fear and chose to attend the interview I nearly ran away from, God made me brave because he was calling me to greater things.

When you are ready to face and endure danger or pain you are showing courage, and this coward right here has a huge amount of respect for you. But when you are called to something greater by someone greater and you hear that call and answer that call in spite of danger, pain or fear, that is when you are truly brave.

Today I pray for all us cowards, I pray that we would have a reason to brave. That he would call us to something greater than our fear. And when the time comes that he would make you brave, calling you out on to the waves. 

Lex xx