Courage
Meg Chaney
How is courage getting the final say in your life right now?
Don’t we often hear the opposite? How is fear holding you back? I love the positive switch of this question up above, how is courage getting the final say? Like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, we already have that courage living inside of us. So often, we focus on the failures, all the defeats, all the ways we haven’t measured up in this life, instead of the victories!
And so today, I wanted to look at just a few victories. If I was just looking at the world around me, I would say that there’s still a lot of unanswered questions. 2021 came in, still in the midst of a Global Pandemic. My family and I are still, for the most part, staying home. Many outside activities still haven’t gone back to normal. My children are still homeschooling, and will be for the rest of this school year and the next.
But victories can be found. Since last August, I’ve had the courage to take on Homeschooling my children. That’s definitely a new win! Now, is every day easy, no. There are still definite challenges. But there’s also joy. There’s afternoons when my children happily play outside. There’s fun science experiments. There’s excited discussions about the American Revolution. I truly enjoy discussing history with my children, and learning right along with them!
Another win would be joining Hope Writers last week. I decided to take a leap of faith and reach out into a community of writers. That was (and still is) a courageous step for me. This is a new experience. By joining, it means that I’m taking myself and my work as a writer seriously.
The biggest leap of courage? To carve out time for myself to write once again. What, with the military, raising our children, homeschooling, and working at our church, I wasn’t sure I could possibly squeeze in consistent writing times. But I am. I truly believe these times of writing will be good for me. As they say in the introduction video to Hope Writers, Dream Big to join, but than take Small Steps to make progress.
I think, for a long time, I was convinced that I needed big parts of my day devoted to writing. I do, and someday, when I’m no longer homeschooling, I’ll once again have larger chunks of time. But any progress is progress. Any consistent time writing is better than none. I was convinced that picking up homeschooling would make this impossible. But I’m already finding small moments, an hour here, and hour there, and afternoon that my husband has off, that I could disappear to a coffee shop. My biggest step now is to actually pen those writing times into my schedule. Because I know that those writing times will never happen, if I don’t block those times off.
And so, I’m being courageous, in blocking time off to write.
Consider the following verse:
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline”
Isn’t that great? God doesn’t want us living in fear, but celebrating in love. He has given us such amazing talents and gifts. Let’s start this new month by considering everything great we have been doing. We are, often, our own worst critics, but we’re all doing some great things as well. I think the last part of the verse above is important as well. God has given us great skills and gifts, but He has also given us self-discipline (ouch). I know there are definitely areas of my life that could use more self-discipline, such as my love of chocolate. But I also believe that today is always a day to move forward. Today can be the day to take a step and say, I’ll write it down. It won’t be perfect, life with intervene, but I’m making these intentional changes. It’s on the calendar, both physically and digitally, so I won’t forget. And I intend to celebrate that change. That small step forward. Just a small step. Nothing huge, but an incremental change just the same. God gave me these glorious gifts, and I celebrate getting to use them in this coming year!
What courageous steps have you been taking? I’d love to celebrate with you today! Feel free to comment before, or find me over on Instagram @megchaneywrites.