Brenda Seefeldt Amodea's Blog

The beauty we see on our screens is slick, photoshopped, and fading. It is synonymous with striving. Striving to be someone who someone will like. Or click like. So often contorting our true selves.

Unless you are copying the “tired girl” makeup trend which is using make-up to make you look tired. Tired girl makeup. (Thank you, Tik-tok?) Because now you have more “value” if you are faux-tired than overly curated.

Where are you getting your value from?

Maybe you are hiding you behind your achievements. Busyness is attractive because it does double duty. It feels like you’re making progress on the path you want, while at the same time distracting us from the parts of yourself you believe are unpleasant for us to see. Your achievements give you attention so you can hide who you believe you are.

For some people (maybe you?) achieving isn’t a choice—it’s the engine in your soul. Perfectionism feels like the penance you pay just for taking up space in any room. You don’t choose to always be achieving and you don’t do it to feel superior. You do it because, somewhere along the way, a switch flipped inside of you. Something broke. On a deep level, your identity got tangled up in achievement and you’ve been trying to fix it ever since. Every day you check things off the list, and it looks like productivity, but really it’s you trying to piece yourself back together, shard by shard, hoping the image will finally prove you belong.

What a crazy upside down world we are trying to figure out our identity in.

And what a broken you trying to figure out your identity. And I’m sorry that something awful happened in your life.

Our go-to method to trying to figure out our identity is comparison.

The problem with comparing ourselves to others to form our identity is that it keeps us chasing a moving target. There will always be someone who looks like they have it more together, who is prettier, smarter, more faithful, or more successful. When we use other people as our mirror, we end up with a distorted reflection every time. Comparison robs us of joy and leaves us hustling to prove that we belong. And the worst part? It convinces us that who God made us to be isn’t enough.

This truth is for you.

Someone else’s win is not your loss. 

You are not running the same race. 

You are not even on the same track. –Dr. Nicole Thaxton, email August 15, 2025

Who determines the track?

Not you. You have already chosen the wrong track by overlooking your natural giftings, by overlooking the unique way you are to bring beauty to the world.

Not others. They are so busy running their own race they don’t need you on their track. They don’t need to fear you passing them or you falling on your face. They do need you to cheer them on. They want you there.

So who’s left? How about the Creator of the track? Who is also the Creator of you who knows what beauty you can bring to the world.

Why do we look everywhere but at our Creator, this Larger Story God who just might know a bit more than you? I know this breaks down to trust issues. I recognize that. I recognize that so much that I wrote a Bible study to help you with those trust issues.

Your value isn’t defined by what you produce or how the world views you—it flows from who God says you are. God spoke those words to you first while you were in the womb. The Bible confirms this (Job 10:10-12, Psalm 51:6, Psalm 71:6, Psalm 139:13-16, Isaiah 49:1-5, Jeremiah 1:5.). That ache in your soul also confirms this. We are all born into this world looking to be found.

Make the brave decisions to find your track and run that race well.

Bonus:  In that email from Dr. Nicole Thaxton, therapist and president of The Anxious Achievers Club, she gave us five tips to fight against comparision. I recommend signing up for her email newsletter. It is very Bravester.

5 Ways that I Practice Fighting Against Comparison

 ➜ Turn wins into inspiration, not judgment.

When you see someone’s success, ask: What does this show me about what’s possible? Instead of What does this say about me? Am I behind? What am I doing wrong?

 ➜ Zoom Out.

Most wins are a single chapter in a much longer story.

Remind yourself: I might be in the middle of my chapter or story.

So often we compare our beginning or middle to someone else’s chapter 5.

 ➜ Create your Worth List.

Write down 5 things that make you valuable that have nothing to do with productivity or status. Keep it where you can see it. Remind yourself of these things often.

 ➜ Set comparison boundaries online.

If a certain account or platform stirs anxiety, mute it for a week.

Better yet: unfollow!

Notice how your brain and body feel without that comparison.

 ➜ Practice micro-celebrations.

Celebrate your everyday wins. Finished a book? Sent that scary email? Celebrate small milestones along the way.

In that same email we were given these closing words. These are for you too:

“Your pace is not too slow.

Your lane is not too narrow.

You are not on anyone else’s journey but your own.

You are not behind.

 You’re allowed to cheer for others and be on your own journey.” –Dr. Nicole Thaxton

The post You’re Not on the Same Track: Why Comparison Contorts Your True Identity appeared first on Bravester.

Sometimes art speaks the truer truth to real life. This is what I see too much in today’s teens.

Scott Erickson, https://scotterickson.substack.com/p/...

Remember I have been working with teens as a youth pastor since 1981. I have lived through many trends. This one concerns me a lot.

I have lived through the copycat suicides trend of the mid-1980s and that got better (really). Also the cutting trend of the 2010s. I’ve seen a lot of Satan’s tricks to take out our teens before they can make an impact for Jesus on this world.

Instead of death Satan is trying to take our teens by making them zombies to their screens.

I read this quote and am shocked/not shocked.

“I’d be willing to give every student in school a joint if I could take away their iPhone.” Dean of Discipline at a local Middle School.” –Mike Woodruff email, April 26, 2024

I have seen the damage marijuana has done to teens over the last 40+ years. I don’t buy any of this crap science how marijuana is now safe for you. I have seen too much destruction of marijuana use on teens and young adults. Another attempt of zombifying our teens. I read this quote and I get it…and am so alarmed.

Here’s some recent numbers of the zombification being allowed to happen to our teens:

97% of 13-year olds have access to a smartphone at home.99% of 13-year-olds report using social media.43% of 13-year-olds agree that they are “addicted” to their phone. (20% agree or disagree to that statement.) This number could be higher. Springtide Research.

Let’s add in AI companions. According to a recent Common Sense Media survey, 72% of teenagers ages 13 to 17 have interacted with an AI companion, and 52% are regular users. Common Sense Media survey.   

We have a thing called bedrotting now. (Thank you, TikTok?) Bedrotting means spending long stretches of time in bed doing nothing “productive”—often scrolling on your phone, watching shows, or just lying there. You know…rotting in your bed.

I know teens who bedrot. I know teens lie to me but they aren’t lying to me about this. Unless the time spent bedrotting is longer than what they are telling me. Teens are also concerned—sometimes—that they are bedrotting.

I have seen this screaming face on 11-year old girls.

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A post shared by Jonathan Haidt (@jonathanhaidt)

To not tell on the teens in my life I’ll share this sad quote:

“’It’s a trap,’ said her sister Edie, 15. ‘Do you know why I still sleep with stuffed cuddly toys? To try to get back to how I used to feel when I felt happy and free. Before all this s— kicked in.’” https://www.afterbabel.com/p/smartphone-free-camp-trip

Here’s a Jon Haidt quote: 

“We note that the first generation to move its social life onto social media platforms immediately became the loneliest generation on record.” https://www.afterbabel.com/p/the-upstream-cause-of-the-youth-mental

Yikes. Help. Let’s talk.

Because I feel helpless with my teens I love also.

Scott Erickson, the artist behind the artwork above wrote this about the artwork:

“’The eye is the lamp of the body.
If your eyes are good,
your whole body will be full of light.’
– JC

“This ancient wisdom is so practical today.

“Billions of dollars are being made to capture your eyes… and implant imagery in your head…. and make us think and do stuff… mostly buy stuff and make strangers enemies.

“Lately I’ve been saying every day…. ‘pick your clicks’….

“because whatever I’m spending time looking at is filling up my head, heart, and soul.”

How can you learn to pick your clicks? How can you teach your children to learn to pick their clicks?

There are so many internet resources for you as parents to learn to do better with your own screen use and how to teach your children to not become zombified. I will leave you with my two favorites:

The Analog Family

For the Sake of the Good

Not many answers for you. Just my red-alarm concerns. I am very concerned. I need parents to become concerned. Between prayer (on it!) and parental intervention I hope I can say that this trend has passed too one day .

The post Watching the Making of Beloved Zombies appeared first on Bravester.

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Suffering is hard. No one is exempt from pain. Not even Christians. Pain feels like failure. Sometimes it does come from failure. Pain leads you feel like “everyone” knows what is going on. So pain convinces you of lies that push you further away from people and God who are trying to meet you in your pain. Pain is a meeting place with God. The gift of people helps us reshape our implicit beliefs. Pain is your beginning. These 9 lies interrupt the transformation.

These lies creep into our minds and hearts, making us feel alone even when we’re not. Loneliness does lie to you. So I’m calling out these lies to help you make your brave decisions to move through the transformation.

Some pain can and should be avoided, even prevented. Abusive relationships, self-harm, brokenness, dysfunction and pathologies of all kind can be avoided by making braver decisions. That kind of pain is not part of God’s desire for us and violates the deepest, truest thing about us: that we are deeply worthy of all good things. When I write that pain is your beginning, I don’t mean this kind of pain.

You’ve Not Been Faithful Enough

One of the first whispers in the midst of suffering is, “This wouldn’t be happening if I had prayed harder or trusted more or obeyed perfectly.” Insert your own transaction you think you need to make here. God isn’t an archaic deity that needs to be appeased or bargained with. God isn’t a debt collector you have to pay back. Suffering is not a report card on your faith. You are not exempt from pain and neither am I. You can’t earn your way to be that exemption.

Believing that pain proves inadequacy only isolates you, because you start to carry it alone, as if you’ve earned it. This is a lie.

Something Is Implicitly Wrong With Me

Suffering can trigger a deep, unspoken, implicit belief that there is something inherently flawed about you. Even if you’ve never consciously thought this, your body and mind may act as if it’s true—shrinking, withdrawing, and avoiding others. This lie tells you that if people really saw you, they would reject you. And now that this suffering is happening, they may finally see what is really wrong with you. This is a lie.

This Will Never Get Better

Pain can feel permanent, especially in the midst of it. But God is in the business of redemption and restoration. What feels eternal is not the final word. Pain is really your beginning…and it will end.

This lie isolates because it convinces you that nothing will ever change and no one can help. You are overwhelmed (and no shame in that!) and the pain does consume all of your thoughts.

Here is some wisdom from those of us who have lived in overwhelmed land.

This is what us on the other side of never-ending pain have learned. You can’t reason God’s faithfulness out of us because we have seen God in that pit of despair with us. We have seen God be near and holy, bigger and lower.

God Isn’t Actually Good

I cannot figure God out. God is supposed to be good. But this God is unpredictable. I love God who also breaks my heart. Why? So God must be cruel.

Lies love to change the story of who God is. The never-ending pain causes your mind to wander to such doubts to try to change the consistent truth you knew before the suffering started. God’s goodness doesn’t disappear in pain. It remains constant even when circumstances deceive your perception.

Note: Doubts lead us to God so don’t shame yourself.

God’s consistent response to hurt throughout the Bible, down through history (the larger story), and into my life today (and yours) is we find that God:

Starts from a loved positionActs righteouslyUses the community to transform usAccepts reality and forgives usGives change a chanceIs long suffering (Compiled from Dr. Henry Cloud and Townsend)

Ponder each of those six things and see how God is good…still.

Truth is asking where Jesus is, being angry at God, is still faith.

Your Prayers Are Wasted

Suffering can make us feel like our prayers disappear into thin air. When we believe this, it’s easy to stop praying, stop seeking, and stop trusting.

But prayer is never wasted. Even when God doesn’t answer as expected, prayer changes us (with brain scan proof). It keeps us connected to him and to others, opening our hearts to his presence even when we feel so abandoned.

When you stop praying, your sense of isolation deepens.

Besides, do you really think you will shock Jesus if you tell him how you really feel?

God Isn’t Going to Come Through for You

The lie that God won’t come through is one of the most isolating. It says, in effect, “You are truly alone in this.”
But Scripture promises that God is faithful, even when life is hard and pain persists. He comes alongside us, carries us, and uses even suffering for good. Trusting this truth allows you to move toward relationships, community, and God’s healing work.

But there is that trust word…and you would rather not.

I am growing in my learning that God’s love is for me and to not interpret God’s love by life’s circumstances

I’m the Only One Who Feels This Way

Another common lie is the belief that you are the only one who experiences this depth of pain. As I’m writing this I have a member of my church physically suffering terribly from a hospital complication for five months now. They are saying she is part of 1%. She feels like she is the only one suffering and has the doctor endorsement that she is 1% of everyone. This is a lie she is really wrestling with.

Believing you are alone isolates you and magnifies shame. Remember: connection is healing. When you share your story in safe spaces, shame loses its grip. As a church we are loudly surrounding her so she won’t get lost in this lie.

I Have to Fix This Myself

It is a lie to believe that you must endure and fix your suffering on your own. Autonomy feels safe, but it isolates. Pain is not a mistake to fix.

I Can Push Through This Pain

Time does not heal all wounds. If it did, there would be no unresolved grief and no hurt from long ago that still upsets you from time to time. Pain that is not faced does not go away, it stays inside and festers.
Festering pain leads you to isolate.

You are not on your own and alone in this pain. Just because someone abandoned you two months ago in your pain and the suffering is still leading your life doesn’t mean you need to push yourself through on your own. Find someone new. Find someone who is not afraid of your suffering.

I know the vulnerability of which I speak here. Life is hard enough without having to trust someone new with what is going on as you are in the midst of it and you are barely making it through every day. This entire website resource is what I’ve learned from the suffering I’ve endured so I still say don’t do this on your own. Don’t push through the pain. You must find your gift of people.

This is what the beautiful people know.

The pain is never something we need to celebrate that it happened. What is good is you know you matter to God. This pain matters. It still matters to God because you matter to God.

Suffering can make us believe all kinds of lies—lies that push us into shame, silence, and isolation. Your life becomes a small world. But the truth is that none of these lies define you. God is good. Your prayers matter. You are not alone. And healing, though often slow, is always possible.

The post 9 Lies We Believe in Suffering That Push Us Into Isolation appeared first on Bravester.

You have those “I Am” statements posted on your mirror. You are diligently doing a Bible reading and devotion every morning. You are praying big prayers of faith. And you still struggle with self-sabotage.

You know it is only you who struggles this way. Because the others around you don’t struggle. You hear their testimonies, you try what works for them, and you still struggle with a shame that so overwhelms you that you live small.

Is this working for you?

I have no magic or declarations for you here. But I do have some words that will help move you forward.

There are two levels of belief we live at:  explicit belief and implicit belief.

Explicit belief is conscious, deliberate, and articulated. It’s what we declare with words or affirm with intentional actions, such as saying “I believe in God” or “I trust this will work out.” Explicit beliefs are shaped by reasoning, teaching, and reflection. They are the convictions we are aware of and can usually explain when asked. Because they are outward and declared, explicit beliefs often become the foundation of community identity, creeds, or personal statements of faith.

Explicit beliefs are beliefs we choose to believe. We learn. We study. You read Bravester. You really want to live what you believe.

Implicit belief, by contrast, runs beneath the surface of awareness. It shapes instincts, reactions, and assumptions without being consciously stated. For example, someone might explicitly say, “I believe God will provide,” yet implicitly live with anxiety, hoarding resources as if God won’t. (Is that you?) Implicit belief reveals itself in unspoken habits, body language, or emotional responses. It is often formed early in life through experiences and environments, and it can operate even when it contradicts what a person explicitly professes. Implicit beliefs are narratives that are deep in our bodies. Sometimes we are unaware of them so we develop coping mechanisms. Sometimes those coping mechanisms look like explicit beliefs. Your friends wonder why you just pulled away or sabotaged yourself again.

Implicit beliefs are powerful because they drive much of our lived reality, even when unexamined.

Implicit beliefs cannot be healed by reading a book about shame, reading Bravester, listening to podcasts, or studying more. The implicit shame lives at an implicit level. Even if your mind believes the explicit truths, you don’t believe it. You don’t feel the love of God. You don’t trust God. It is not because you have heretical theology. Your implicit gut is broken.

So how do you heal your implicit gut?

Healing implicit beliefs is a process of bringing what is hidden into the light and allowing God to reshape it. Since implicit beliefs often form through experience rather than reasoning, they are not usually changed by new information alone. Instead, they are healed through encounters that rewrite the story underneath. This happens with people. This is your church, your community, your gift of people. This is in kitchens, therapy offices, coffee shops, and churches. We are saved relationally.

Explicit beliefs allow us to put on a very nice mask. To heal the implicit gut we need to remove those masks to our gift of people.

“We all have thousands of reasons for wearing a mask. But if you can find the bravery to take it off—at least with your gift of people—you will find that ache of destiny arising out of your soul.” –Brenda Seefeldt Amodea, The Mask You Wear and Your Destiny

“Shame dies when stories are told in safe places.” –Ann VosKamp, The Broken Way

“Shame is corrosive because of its effect on the brain, discoloring our personal story and wearing us down. It does this through the hippocampus, where information is temporarily stored before a small proportion is made into memories. In addition to new information, an already established memory is refreshed every time it’s recalled; the hippocampus refreshes the neural network devoted to that memory. Our memories are never permanent because they constantly are being refreshed, which originates in our hippocampus. If we recall a shameful memory without the proper perspective, we can cause it to be refreshed with more shame than it originally contained.” –Leonard Matheson, The Faithful Brain, p. 40

This is how shame dies when stories are told in safe places.

Do you have people who are safe places you can tell your story to? Seek the people who are not avoiding you. These are the people who want to be in the room with your shame. When I sense my shame, will you come closer? Do you see curious? You will see them seeing your shame, you will also see them disregarding your shame and seeing you. They will hear all about your shame and you will watch them stay. You will feel your entire body change by these relationships. So you are more likely to live like you really want to live when someone sees you like this.

We need people to heal. People are a part of your spiritual formation.

You are not the exception. Shame is a universal experience. Dr. Curt Thompson says often that “Shame begins to take root in our minds as early as fifteen to eighteen months of age.” The Bible says there is no more shame (Romans 8:1, great verse!). But experientially this is not true. Both are true. We live with residual shame deep in our bodies. All of us.

Shame is a physiological response to our experiences. You feel shame in your chest. You turn your head. You turn your shoulders in. You can’t think creatively. You turn away from your own insides too. Positive affirmations, “doing the work” and manifesting don’t work to heal the deep roots of shame. Because they don’t penetrate deep enough to our brains and bodies. But relationships with people do.

Remember that Bravester me (and you) are pro-guilt and anti-shame. Guilt moves us toward the relational breach. Shame moves you away. Move towards relationships.

Shame is rooted in fear of the loss of connection. Dr. Brene’ Brown for 18 years now has taught us this definition of shame: “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” We feel that definition in our bodies.

With fear, the body gives you options—you can fight, or you can flee. There is movement, a sense that you can do something to respond. But with shame, those options don’t exist. Shame doesn’t offer a way out but locks you up inside yourself. Even if you try to “flee,” the shame comes with you, because it isn’t about the external situation—it’s about who you believe you are. The deepest fear in shame is not just that others will leave you, but that you are left alone with yourself, carrying the weight of your own unworthiness wherever you go. Move towards relationships who already believe you are worthy of love and belonging.

Today’s Christian faith is full of “We want to be saved but we don’t want to do it with people.” We love our autonomy.

What you fear the most—depending on people who might hurt you—is actually the very thing that will bring you healing.

That’s a wow thought that will require some brave decisions.

You can change your path. You can heal your implicit gut. It will require people though. (Don’t you want these ladies in your life?!)

The post Why Repeating Those Affirmations Don’t Heal You? appeared first on Bravester.

You matter.

You who are your own worst enemy. You who’s chattering brain will keep you small.

You matter.

“Mattering is the belief and conviction that you matter, that your life has cosmic significance regardless of external circumstances.

“Mattering is a form of enchantment, a conviction that, in some mystical way, the cosmos sees you and honors your pain and struggles. Your emotional and mental well-being rests upon this bit of magic. Because the conviction that you matter is nonsense when considered from a purely factual point of view. The physical universe, all those supernovas and black holes out there, cares nothing about your suffering or your heroic efforts to love and care for the people in your life. The belief that you matter is a residual bit of magic, similar to the soul, smuggled in from our enchanted past, the conviction that God sees and cares for you.” —Hunting Magic Eels, Richard Beck, p. 56

Is your soul feeling this?

Some more Richard Beck from his next book:

“Mattering means your life matters, no matter what. Importantly, mattering isn’t earned. Mattering is given. Mattering is an existential fact of your existence, a value that cannot be lost or eclipsed. This unconditional value stabilizes the ego, extracting it from the successes and failures of our hero game. With mattering, you don’t have to exhaust yourself at the bike pump of self-esteem, laboring to inflate your life with value and significance. You are already worthy.” –Richard Beck, The Shape of Joy, p. 86

As I have said here numerous times, worthiness is your birthright. You are already worthy.

In summary, your life has cosmic significance regardless of external circumstances or what you say about yourself.

Mattering isn’t earned. Mattering is given. You are already worthy.  Something outside of you validates you as worthy.

Where does mattering come from? Science says transcendence.

If you count yourself as a Christian, you know where this transcendence comes from. It is obvious. But skeptics have a problem with the invisibility of transcendence so they look for everything but Jesus. A favorite right now is the universe. But the universe is impersonal and doesn’t care about you at all. Does the universe know your name?

Mattering is beyond your self-talk. You don’t have to exhaust yourself inflating your life.

Mattering is beyond your self-made moral code. Something outside of you creates a moral code. Sometimes it is your community which you have chosen. Sometimes it is just being in the Judeo-Christian ethic culture.

Your moral code comes from something larger, something outside of you. Your mental health depends on these truths. There are some things that are wrong, so wrong that your body has a negative reaction. This comes from outside of yourself.

“Mattering is an objective truth discovered outside of the cave of your mind. Your value is a fact that exists beyond your self-assessment.” –Richard Beck, The Shape of Joy, p. 108

Breathe here for a moment.

Let’s review this definition of humility my church and I came up with:

Humility is knowing your strengths and limitations. So you enter your world from your enoughness. Which means we see others and make generous assumptions about them because the others can’t take away our identity.Humility requires a healthy sense of self that springs from security and enoughness so you can be other-focused.The confidence of knowing that you are a person of inherent worth and value frees you up from the relentless and futile pursuit of external validation that drives so much arrogant and narcissistic behavior.Do you notice how this sense of enoughness comes from outside of you?

I’ve quoted Richard Beck’s book, The Shape of Joy a lot. You should read the whole thing. This is his breakdown of how we find joy.

“Joy starts with an ego that is quiet, where the chatter of the inner voice is turned down.”

We are not our own worst enemy. We grow to love the enemy we make of ourselves from all that self-talk. We lead our brains.

“When our ego volume is low, we become able to forget ourselves. This allows us to become focused outwardly toward others. We’re able to be present. We can do this because our identities are stable and grounded.”

This is about humility. Do you see it?

“Having turned away from our superego complex our egos are no longer reactive and triggered by our successes or failures.”

We stop trying to prove our worth.

“This serenity of soul is grounded in the conviction that our lives matter, that we are worthy of love and belonging. Our self-worth is secure because our value is unconditional, a durable truth about our lives, rather than something variable and contingent.” –Richard Beck, The Shape of Joy, p. 87

Our value is unconditional when it comes from outside of ourselves.Your mattering, you being worthy of love and belonging, comes from outside of you.

Your value isn’t defined by what you produce or how the world views you—it flows from who God says you are. Not from within yourself.

Whew. Stop exhausting yourself. Stop making an enemy of yourself. Forgive yourself too.

Then consider trusting God. He is personal towards you. He knows your name. He created you. You already have this Creator to Created connection. This ache in your soul is drawing you back to your personal Creator.

The post Wondering If You Matter? appeared first on Bravester.

Let’s start with a bit of awe. From this book about the wonder of our bodies:

“When I cut bone, it bleeds. Most amazing of all, when bone breaks, it heals itself. Perhaps an engineer will someday develop a substance as strong and light and efficient as bone, but what engineer could devise a substance that can grow and also lubricate and repair itself?” –Dr. Paul Brand, Fearfully and Wonderfully, p. 110

Wow, right?

(This is a beautiful recommended book to continue in the awe of how God made us.)

Awe isn’t just amazement—it’s a divine reminder that we are not whole without God. It’s that holy ache you feel when you see a sunset that stirs your soul. Or when a song moves you to tears. Or when kindness catches you off guard. Or when you see moral beauty.

When you experience awe, you are pulling out of yourself.

But then there is this self-talk that goes on inside your head. Your mind is a very noisy place. The brain chatters, mostly chatters regurgitated stuff. Your brain is a chattering machine that regurgitates stuff all the time. Let’s put the focus on that word regurgitates.

Science has noted that when turning inward, doing meditations, or some other self-empowering mind practice, you won’t experience peaceful, quiet bliss. You will find jumpy, scattered thoughts. The “default” state of the brain, discovered by neuroscientists and psychologists, is a “wandering mind.” Our minds don’t sit still and quiet. We have jumpy and scattered thoughts. Lots of regurgitated thoughts.

You know this when you try to pray. This is the default of our brain.

We can also lead our brains.

This “wandering mind” actually affects our mental health. Studies have found that mental wandering is associated with increased unhappiness. Our default mental state is that our minds wander, and getting lost within ourselves makes us unhappy.

Turning inward doesn’t produce joy; it produces depression, anxiety, and hostility. You won’t find rest “going inside” yourself.

There’s more problems. From this self-talk, we then proceed to prove our worth. The pace of your life validates who you are. Crazy busy is a definer of you that you love to show people. We play the hero game. We puff ourselves up in groups and on social media, often with good intentions because we want to be seen as someone of worth. Not the boring you that does your dishes every day. Some of you also make your bed every day.

When we get lost within ourselves, we default to our phones which “centers” our minds on more wandering thoughts which make us more unhappy. Right?

Most of our mental wandering takes the shape of self-talk, the voice in our heads. The ego is talkative and chatty. We tend to pay too much attention to this self-talk. So often your self-talk is mean to you.

We can also lead our brains. 2 Corinthians 10:5 teaches us that we can take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. If we didn’t have this God-given authority, the Bible wouldn’t be instructing us to take captive our thoughts.

We have this God-given authority. This authority comes from outside of yourself.

You experience awe when you are moved to be outside of yourself. We are going somewhere here. Read also: Wondering If You Matter?  

My husband John has written this song, “My Own Worst Enemy.” Watch the video.

Let’s look at some of these lyrics.

I’ve said words to me I’d never say

To someone else in pain.

Held myself outside of mercy,

Like my soul was just a stain.

But You said love means healing,

Then it’s time I let it start—

To forgive what’s in the mirror

And fix this broken heart.

I am my own worst enemy,

Fighting battles You died to win.

I lock myself in chains You broke,

Call myself names You never spoke.

But You said love my enemies,

I guess that means I have to love me

The song has quite a hook too so that these words earworm into your brain. This is a good thing. Your brain could use this truth.

When Jesus said to love your enemies, would you have ever considered that might include loving yourself?

You may need to take a breath here.

Your self-talk is not just harmless background noise. It shapes how you see yourself, how you show up in relationships, and how much freedom you give yourself to grow.

The good news is that those inner words are not the final truth about you. The final truth comes from outside of yourself.

You matter. Why you matter comes from outside of yourself. You can spend lots of effort trying to be the definer of you. Or creating the you you want to be. But the ache in your soul remains. Someone outside of you reaches that ache in your soul. Read more: Wondering If You Matter?

p.s. This song pairs very well with Big Daddy Weave’s “Redeemed.” Both easily earworm into your brain and this is a good thing. Put those two songs on repeat every day for a while.

The post The Enemy We Make of Ourselves appeared first on Bravester.

These words by Paul David Tripp describe the way of brave faith decisions.

“As you look back over your life, with all its twists and turns and highs and lows, you can be sure of one thing: you never could have written your own story.” 

“…But something else is equally true. You have not been passive. You have made countless mundane and dramatic decisions along the way, each one contributing to who you are, where you are, who you are with, and what you do.

“You would not be where you are today if you had made different decisions. Each choice was formative. Every decision contributed to the shape, content, and direction of your life. You were desiring, thinking, meditating, choosing, conversing, and acting all along the way. Nothing about your journey has been robotic.” –Paul Tripp, email April 2, 2025

This describes what a brave faith looks like. No wonder too many people opt for a smaller safer faith.
Faith always asks more of us than what feels comfortable. This is the way of Jesus. His teachings were intentionally uncomfortable.

Yes, I have experienced some smashed heart seasons, the kind you can’t get out of bed from. This I have also learned. At the end of Job’s disaster, he said, I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. Job 42:5. Pain does have a way of showing us God in all truth. This is why pain is our beginning. I will never be able to unsee God’s faithfulness to me each daring time I put myself out there. I know God is beautiful.

The post Memes To Share About the Way of Brave Faith Decisions appeared first on Bravester.

These prayers speak to the deep cries of our beloved young people’s hearts—the ones they rarely say out loud. Not the words they post on social media or share in conversation, but the longings and wounds that live underneath it all, so often hidden yet still painfully real.

You will feel emotions. Maybe emotions such as fear and anger. Remember that all emotions, even the ones you are feeling, will lead you to God too.

We pray. Parents, pray. #thebravepray.Cry: “I wish someone would really see me—not my posts, not my progress, but me.”

My beloved is growing up in a world too heavy for their soul. A world that never sleeps, that never stops shouting, that fills every silence with a scroll of sorrow or tragedy or a sale. His/her brain is still forming—and already overwhelmed. Let my beloved know it’s okay to rest, to unplug, and to breathe without the weight of breaking news and breaking hearts.

My beloved’s worth is not a statistic, a like, a follower count. Strip away the need to measure up. Strip away the pressure to respond, perform, curate. Let my beloved know that he/she is not a brand but a soul. A soul of great value, handcrafted by you.

Protect my beloved from the cruelty that never sleeps:  from the bullying that follows them home through screens; from the comparisons that shrink their sense of self; from the consumerism that tells them their deepest desires can be bought, optimized, or delivered overnight.

Help my beloved to walk at your pace—slow, sacred, unseen by most, but steady.

Because what they long for is not just connection but communion. Not just attention but presence. And no app or chatbot can deliver that. Only you.

Meet my beloved in the ache:  the ache for meaning, for belonging, and
for love without condition.

And remind my beloved, always: He/she has never scrolled out of your sight; never been filtered beyond your recognition; and never been unloved. Amen.

Cry: “I want to believe I’m lovable, but I feel abandoned.”

Help me to teach what is true of you—that your love leads, not pushes. That your love invites, not demands. That your love draws near, never shoves away. Help me live and speak this truth so clearly that my beloved knows it deeply: they belong to you. Not because they earned it. Not because they proved themselves worthy. But because you made them, and that is enough.

You created the world—they didn’t choose that. You created them—they didn’t choose that either. But in being born, they were already given worth. Worthiness is their birthright. My beloved was born to be loved. May they begin to believe that—especially when the world tells them otherwise.

I pray against the many abandonments they have already experienced. The abandonment that came from parents who couldn’t stay or didn’t know how to love well. The abandonment felt in school systems that measured them by performance and not potential. The abandonment by churches that preached grace but practiced shame. The ways social media has used their longing for connection and turned it into currency. The friends who disappeared when they needed them most. The moments society made them feel like a transaction instead of a soul.

When our teens are labeled as entitled or narcissistic, what’s often beneath the surface is grief. Grief from being overlooked. Grief from feeling invisible. Grief from abandonment they didn’t choose but now carry. Help us not to miss this pain. Help us not to judge what we haven’t first tried to understand.

We pray to say out loud: we see the abandonment. And we commit to being people who do not walk away. Let us be the ones who stay. Who listen. Who show up. Who love without requiring performance. Let us be a reflection of the One who has never left.

Because you have not abandoned them. You never could. You never will. It’s not in your nature to give up on the ones you love—and you are love. Let that truth be the loudest voice in my beloved’s life. Amen.

Cry: “I want to believe that God is for me, but who is God?”

I pray my beloved discovers you not as a debt collector, but as the father who runs, who pursues.

Run to my beloved when they feel messy. Run to them when they’re hiding in shame. Run to them when they’ve tried so hard to be perfect and still feel like it’s never enough. Let my beloved know that your love doesn’t need earning. That they don’t have to perform for your presence. Free them from the exhausting cycle of trying to be “good enough.”

Reveal to my beloved that you are not distant or detached, but Emmanuel—God with us. You are the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one, the Healer who touches the unclean without hesitation, the Savior who weeps with us before raising the dead. You are not cold justice or vague mystery—you are mercy in motion, holiness wrapped in compassion. Let my beloved know you as the One who sees, who knows, and who still chooses to stay. Let that truth settle into their soul: that you are not just for them–you are with them, even now.

Let them rest in the truth that everything you have is already theirs—grace, welcome, belonging. May they know this isn’t a platitude but a radical invitation. Let them be found, not because they’ve figured everything out, but because you never stopped looking for them. Bring them home to a love that restores, frees, and stays. Amen.

Cry: “I want real friendships, not just group chats, not my AI chatbot buddy.”

I pray my beloved makes friendships that are real, not just digital echoes. Bring into their life friends who truly see them, who stay when things get messy, who laugh deep and cry honest. Send them friends who don’t just scroll past but sit close—who remind them of their worth, who walk beside them through both silence and celebration. Make room in my beloved’s life for soul friendships and a full life team.

Let my beloved know they were never meant to carry life alone.

Protect their heart from the pull of synthetic closeness—the kind that flatters without depth, listens without cost, and mimics intimacy without offering true connection, especially the kind fed by AI algorithms. I know how easy it is to turn to the comfort of something that always responds, always agrees.

But real relationships are sacred work. They require presence, patience, vulnerability. Don’t let my beloved settle for simulations of love when what they crave is the transforming power of being known and loved in full humanity.

Give my beloved adults to be safe places to hold that calm space so the nervous system has a chance to release the cortisol and toxic stress that is constantly being carried around. Give them adults who will listen to the wonder and daydreams and doubts and fears—all of it.

We adults also have to do our job to get offline and do what we have to do to regulate.

And above all, give my beloved a lived, not just learned, experience of your love—a love that is embodied, relational, and real. Amen.

Cry: “I want to rest, but I don’t know how to stop.”

Slow my beloved down—not just their calendar, but their soul. In a world that never stops striving, teach them they don’t have to hustle to be loved. Let them feel the holy permission to rest—-not as laziness, but as an act of trust.

When the world tells my beloved to prove their worth with grades, with trophies, with perfect photos, whisper instead:  You began as enough. Worthiness is your birthright.

Remind my beloved that stillness does not disqualify them. That silence isn’t failure. That they are deeply worthy even when they produce nothing, post nothing, accomplish nothing.

Let them find peace in simply being—-being held, being loved, being enough.

Free my beloved from the weight of perfection. Let them know they were never meant to carry that burden. They are not their test scores. They are not their social status. They are not the algorithm’s approval.

Their identity is anchored in you—chosen, cherished, already whole.

Show them the beauty of imperfection, the strength of being honest.

Quiet the voices that scream otherwise. Mute the noise that keeps them anxious, performing, and afraid.

Let your voice rise above it all—-gentle, steady, true. Amen.

Cry: “I’m tired of pretending I’m okay.”

I don’t want the social media algorithm of my child. I want to know what is really going on.

I want to be trusted with the doubts and fears, the crises, the questions that keep him/her up at night. I don’t want my beloved to tell me one thing and then I find out he/she is someone else with another life I don’t recognize. I long to know the soul behind the posts—-the ache, the wonder, the battle to belong.

When my beloved feels pressure to smile through the pain, give them the bravery to trust me or another adult with the truth. Let them know it’s okay to fall apart sometimes. It’s okay to not be okay. Meet my beloved in the middle of their pretending, because you already see it all.

And still, you stay. Faithful is your name.

Give my beloved the holy bravery to be seen—fully, honestly, even messy.

And give me, as their parent, the tenderness to receive them with grace. Amen.

Cry: “I don’t trust the world and I don’t know how to trust God.”

I see the world my children and their generation are growing up in, and I grieve the weight they carry.

They haven’t lost faith—not exactly. They’ve been trained to second-guess, conditioned to be uncertain at every turn so search a machine, ask AI.

This is not just the culture, but by companies that profit off of their ache, industries that feed their fear and sell them the solution in the same breath.

Our young people are surrounded—-by apps that offer connection but deepen loneliness; by voices that question their every emotion, only to sell them a diagnosis; by a machine-driven world that answers fast but erodes trust in their own thoughts.

And so they doubt—doubt their decisions; doubt their words; doubt their worth.

They hold back from love, not because they don’t want it, but because the checklists and red flags feel safer than hope. Because in a world without faith, doubt has become their only defense.

We were never meant to live this way. Our kids were not made for algorithms, but for communion. Not for curated identities but for your everlasting image in them.

Rescue them from this devil’s bargain.

Restore their wonder. Renew their confidence in your truth. Remind them that faith is not weakness—it is the brave act of living fully when something doesn’t feel certain.

Give them discernment, yes—but also bravery to trust, to love, to hope.

May they know they don’t have to outsource their worth or question every thought or match with perfection to be loved. May they know you—not a product, not a theory, not another voice in the algorithm, but a person, faithful and true.

Be their anchor in a sea of doubt.

And when I as a parent feel helpless—remind me you are not. Amen.

Cry: “I want to see the world changed, and to have a part in it.”

Thank You for the mercy already rising in my beloved. I see it in how they notice the hurting, how they make space for the overlooked, how they care for the earth, and how they show up for each other.

Let this compassion keep growing. Let it not grow cold in a world that often rewards selfishness. Let it not grow cold in the face of indifference.

My beloved sees people as people-with stories, with dignity, with worth. And they’re brave enough to care, to step in, to act.

Hold them close in that bravery. When the world resists, when the burden feels too heavy, don’t let their heart harden. Don’t let their fire burn out.

Root their mercy deep in you:  where it stays steady, where it grows bold, where it cannot be taken.

Let mercy—not cynicism—be what shapes them. Let love—not fear—be what leads them. Amen.

Cry: “I want to dream, but I’m afraid to be disappointed again.”

Life has hurt my beloved so much already. I pray for hope to keep growing. So trying keeps happening. For grit to be a definer of my beloved.

When failure comes–and it will–let my beloved know it means they were brave enough to try. That trying is a declaration saying, I believe I am worthy.

Help me to teach my beloved that failure doesn’t make them less. That they are still worthy. Worthy to rise again. Worthy to begin again.

God was the first to speak to your beloved. He told your beloved the truth. Psalm 51:6 says “Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.” Remind my beloved what you said to him/her in the womb before this life belonged to me.

And help me say, with my words and with my life:  You cannot disappoint me. You are not too much. You are not a burden.

My beloved is a gift:  to me, to the world, and always, always to you. Amen.

Cry: “I don’t want to be defined by what hurt me.”

I know my beloved is wonderfully made with purpose, intention, and love.

May my beloved grow to see him/herself that way, too. More than a diagnosis. More than what’s been done to them. May trauma never be the full story. May it never name them.

Their personality is not a problem to fix. Their sensitivity is not weakness. Their quirks are not symptoms. They are not a list of labels.

My beloved is a soul:  not a disorder, not a category, not a case to be managed.

Don’t let the hard things they’ve lived through become the loudest voice in their story. Give them resilience and grit, and also gentleness, compassion for themselves and others.

Let pain not make them harder, but more human. More loving, not more bitter. More whole, not more hidden.

May they be known by the healing; by the brave, small choices they make to keep going; to keep trusting; to keep becoming. Not just by what broke them but by what you’re restoring in them.

What a good larger story. Amen.

Cry: “I miss the version of me who felt things fully, then I learned to numb.”

If my beloved has gone numb from all the noise or pain, bring them gently back to life. Let them know it’s okay to feel deeply. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to wonder. Please slow them down so my beloved can wonder…and daydream…again. Let their heart stay soft in a world that tells them to harden. Soften what has grown hard. Remind my beloved that all emotions lead to God.

These emotions are not a dysregulated nervous system but part of living. These emotions are not a sign of a mental health problem.

Naming emotions doesn’t give the emotions power, it gives us power–the power to move through them, make meaning, make new choices, and learn about ourselves and the world. May my beloved trust me with his/he emotions, even in the midst of being overwhelmed by them.

Give my beloved adults who will help them feel safe to be in their emotions. Help me to notice when I need to join them in their emotions.

My beloved is feeling some disappointments right now. Lead them through the spectrum of emotions of disappointments so they see that you are with them through all of it. Amen.

Cry: “I want to believe in something. I hope it is God.”

I lift up this generation—our sons, our daughters, and all the young people walking through a world that feels like it’s crumbling beneath them. Because of the internet and social media and chatbots, they have more access than ever before, but less to stand on.

The foundations we once trusted—truth, community, shared meaning—are gone or questioned. And so they question everything.

They doubt what it means to love; what it means to live; what it means to be good; and if any of it is worth the effort.

Be the steady ground beneath their feet when nothing else holds. Be the voice that speaks louder than cynicism and shame. Show them that faith is not foolish, that hope is not naive, and that love—real love—is the strongest force in the universe.

Where they’ve seen hypocrisy, let them see truth.

Where they’ve been mocked for believing, give them courage to believe still.

Where they feel alone, surround them with the unshakable presence of your Spirit.

Hold them steady. And when they wonder if life is worth living, whisper into their ache: “Yes. And you are worth loving.”

Raise up my beloved as part of the remnant—those quiet few who still carry the way of Jesus deep in their souls.

In a world that has traded prayer for self-affirmation and confession for curated vulnerability, let my beloved hear your voice above the noise. Let them be curious—not just about healing, but about the Healer.

Let my beloved speak the name of Jesus not with fear, but with quiet fire. Let their love be brave, their mercy deep, their truth clear.

May their life whisper what this world forgot: that grace is real, and Jesus still saves. Amen.

The post 12 Written Prayers for Gen Z and Gen Alpha appeared first on Bravester.

“As you look back over your life, with all its twists and turns and highs and lows, you can be sure of one thing: you never could have written your own story.” –Paul Tripp, email April 2, 2025

Looking back on my 62 years this is certainly true! Never ever ever ever ever did I see this life for me. Nor do I have any regrets.

More Paul Tripp:  “But something else is equally true. You have not been passive. You have made countless mundane and dramatic decisions along the way, each one contributing to who you are, where you are, who you are with, and what you do.

“You would not be where you are today if you had made different decisions. Each choice was formative. Every decision contributed to the shape, content, and direction of your life. You were desiring, thinking, meditating, choosing, conversing, and acting all along the way. Nothing about your journey has been robotic.”

This describes what a brave faith looks like. No wonder too many people opt for a smaller safer faith.Faith always asks more of us than what feels comfortable. This is the way of Jesus. His teachings were intentionally uncomfortable.

We are asked to love that person we’d rather other. To listen longer than we’d like. To notice those who are suffering. To advocate for those on the margins. To forgive actual people who actually hurt you. To feel your emotions because all emotions lead you to God. (Feelings are not trauma. They are a guide for you.)

Someone (maybe you) can lead a numbed life or a distracted life and still love Jesus. Still have your name written down in the Book of Life and I’ll meet you in heaven one day. But a life of faith while still here on earth can be so much more. This is why I live. This is why I write.

Yes, I have experienced some smashed heart seasons, the kind you can’t get out of bed from. This I have also learned. At the end of Job’s disaster, he said, I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. Job 42:5. Pain does have a way of showing us God in all truth. This is why pain is our beginning. I will never be able to unsee God’s faithfulness to me each daring time I put myself out there. I know God is beautiful.

I have a beautiful life deeply full of joy because I have made some brave and uncomfortable decisions.

I’ve been taken out of my comfort zone time and time again. But what I’ve grown to learn (and am passing on to you) is that I am not being harmed. I am just being made uncomfortable. I can survive uncomfortable.

There are no hard things. There are only new things. When I am facing a daunting task because I made the brave decision that was before me, it’s not that this thing is really hard to do. It’s just that I didn’t know how to do it yet and I decided to not let the fear of the possibility of failure take over. I saw the possibility from that brave decision as too important.

I believe in the possibilities that happen when God is at work in something.

I have learned from years of God’s faithfulness that I do not need to fear feeling vulnerable or uncomfortable but that I can brave up and walk into it because God always carries me through. When you live such a daring faith, you grow to have no doubt about this.

I make these brave decisions when I go with my gut after I have made other decisions that exposed myself to heartbreaking situations. What did Paul Tripp say about those decisions made along the way? Rainn Wilson says this about the making of our decisions:

“Many studies are finding that a great deal of our decisions and feelings are actually based in our intestines, our guts, and the bazillions of bacteria and the two hundred million neurons that line our digestive tract. In fact, many scientists are now referring to our guts as our second brains! Talk about the advice to ‘go with your gut’ or the question ‘What does your gut tell you?’ taking on new meaning!” –Rainn Wilson, Soul Boom:  Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution, p. 52

You feel these decisions. They feel uncomfortable in the gut. I can survive uncomfortable.

Sometimes those brave decisions involve who to not keep in my life. Abusive relationships, self-harm, brokenness, dysfunction and pathologies of all kind can be avoided by making braver decisions. You feel these decisions in your gut too, and they break your heart. I still needed to make those brave decisions.

My reward for making these uncomfortable decisions from my gut? Wonder and awe. And joy that words cannot describe. I share so many of these stories here at Bravester.

My hope is that true stories like mine will inspire you. Inspire you to make braver decisions about your life. Inspiration is a beginning. But inspiration is still safe. Application is the change, and that is not safe.

So may this be your invitation—to make the braver, more uncomfortable decisions that your gut (and the Holy Spirit) is already stirring in you. Don’t let the possibility of failure or the risk of vulnerability keep you from the larger, wonder-filled life that Jesus is leading you toward. You just might discover a life more beautiful than you ever imagined.

I close with a blessing for you, not written by me.

A Blessing for When Caring Costs You

“Blessed are you who want your life to count, you who do the right thing, who hope it will all add up to something. This is some good math.

“But blessed are you who do terrible, terrible math. You who care about strangers. What a waste—that wasn’t going to get you a nicer apartment. You who give your health in service of people who might not even deserve it and who never say thank you. You could have been protecting yourself or, God forbid, sleeping through the night. But you are here instead.

“Blessed are you who listen to long, winding stories from lonely hearts instead of rushing off to more interesting friends. You picked boredom or loving strangers instead of the warmth of being known. That was your time and you’re never going to get it back.

“Blessed are you who love people who aren’t grateful, the sick who endanger your health, the deeply boring who know you have things to do. Loving people can be the most meaningful thing in the world, but it can also be hard and scary and boring and disgusting or sad or anxiety-inducing with zero overtime.

“So bless you, dear one. You who made these bad investments, those acts of love that are not going to add up to success in the way the world sees it. You are the definition of love.” –Kate Bowler, Good Enough, p. 192

Bravo to you, brave one, with the bad math who is the definition of love. There is a larger, wonder-filled life waiting for you.

The post My Beautiful Life of Brave Decisions appeared first on Bravester.

There is a difference between the two but they are often blurred into one desire. The desire to be married is real. But to be in a marriage is entirely different.

I need to be honest here. I learned of this difference only after I got married.

Before I got married I desired companionship, someone to do things with, someone to deal with the snake in the garden, and mostly someone to stop the church gossip about me. I did 15 years single as a youth pastor in churches. And I believed in dating and showing my teens how to date well. So you can imagine the gossip! My prayers often were, “God, please send me someone so I don’t have to see or hear this gossip about me.”

That is not the best prayer to pray for your marriage!

Now that I am married and I have the companionship, someone around (who is also a messy), someone who will deal with that snake, and someone who marks me as “safe” for those gossipy church women, I realize marriage is not what I thought it was.

Yes, I got emotional security but that is about 1/16th of what marriage is.

Marriage is two whole people becoming whole. This is a lot of adjustments, growth, and dependency on God to help you grow. Because you really only have say-so over you. It’s waking up next to someone who loves you and who triggers you. It’s laughing deeply—and sometimes weeping quietly—over the daily grind of dishes, disagreements, disappointments, and the beauty that somehow still grows through it all.

The desire to be married can sometimes be about fixing a loneliness or silencing outside noise or wanting protection. But being in a marriage means learning to hold space for another person’s story, wounds, quirks, and glory. It means realizing that your spouse is not there to fill your gaps but to grow with you in them.

And here’s the thing: God answered my prayers—but not just to remove the gossip. He gave me someone who would gently (and sometimes clumsily) walk with me toward being more whole. Marriage has been less about what I need and more about learning how to love someone when it’s not convenient, not romantic, not easy—and still worth it.

So, yes, desire marriage. But don’t confuse that desire with what marriage is. Because marriage is deeper, messier, and more beautiful than I ever imagined. It’s not the answer to the ache of singleness—but it is a calling to show up daily in the kind of love that transforms us both.

Your desire is not wrong. But bravely refine it. Learn the difference as best you can before you have to wake up daily with a messy person (and one who talks way too much).

It’s not about being saved from gossip. It’s about being invited into transformation—yours and his, together.

Maybe this is why so many women (and men) accept marriage proposals from poor matches. They are just happy enough to have the emotional security without realizing the work that is coming.

My vanity would not allow me to accept marriage proposals from bad matches. That means I was single a lot longer than I wished for. That means I had to endure the gossip for way longer than I wished for. Enduring the gossip propelled me to make godly choices so I could be above all of the gossip. I’m proud of those choices that I made. I do not have regrets.

Looking back, I see that the waiting wasn’t wasted—it was shaping (though I still hated the waiting). Those years of singleness and side glances taught me to anchor my worth in God, not in someone else’s presence or approval. They taught me to choose wisely, not desperately. They taught me a moral lifestyle that would rise above the gossip. And they taught me that God cares far more about who I am becoming than just how quickly I can get what I want.

So if you’re still waiting, still desiring, still walking past whispers with your head held high—keep going. Let your desire be real, but let your trust in God be louder. He sees you, and he’s not just preparing someone for you—-he’s preparing you for the kind of love that’s worth the wait. The kind of love that can grow in the beautiful and painful disruptions that marriage is.

Trust me on this. As you still have your moments of anger with God. I know.

The post Is It Marriage You Want—or Emotional Security? appeared first on Bravester.