On Being BRAVE!

I'm not sure where to start this post. I'm not sure what all I want to say here in this space. I have so much to say, but I don't know where the words are to say it.

I do know that I'm finding my voice, and I'm not going to let anybody stop that. I want this to be the time that I find the strength and the courage to use my voice to claim truth. To use my voice to encourage others to find and use theirs.

I feel like when it comes to sex we allow our voices to be quieted. We allow shame to come in and take root, and we allow our voices to be silenced. What we need to be doing is being BRAVE! We need to talk and talk and talk until we feel better. And then talk and talk and talk until we feel even better and then keep talking because we have found our voices, we have told the shame and the guilt to  "Go to Hell!", and we help each other heal.  (Thanks Ritz!)

In January, I decided I was going to do a word for the year and I chose the word BRAVE. When God laid the word Brave on my heart I thought He was asking me to adopt, go to Haiti, go on a mission trip...

I didn't realize that when God asked me to be BRAVE this year it was because dealing with sexual abuse was going to take every amount of courage I could muster and then some. I didn't realize that I was going to need my friends and family to stand in the gap for me when I had no bravery left. I didn't realize I was going to have to be brave by sharing my story with those people who are standing in the gap for me. I didn't realize that it was going to take being brave to tell God how I really feel about who He is because it's easy for me to look at Him as a far off impersonal God not one who weeps over the sexual abuse of His child and then continues to weep as the effects of sexual abuse continue to hurt for many many years. And I am learning that He cares about what I have to say when it's good, when it's bad, when it's honest. He is big enough to handle my doubts, my fears, and my anger. And He can help me overcome it.

So if you are reading this, and thinking "I get this! I feel this way!" use your voice and be BRAVE. Start with God. Start by being honest with Him, and then keep talking to everyone who will listen, and even those who won't because your voice is beautiful and your story is valuable and you never know what that person will hear and how it will encourage them.

Be BRAVE!!