Status Updates From The Lord Is My Courage: Ste...

Abuse in one church is every Christian's problem. We can't call ourselves a body and then refuse to stop the bleeding in another's limb, just because our arm seems to be working fine. We belong to each other. Until the whole church chooses to listen to the voices of the crushed, the body of Christ will not be healthy or whole.

The truth is, courage is not an individual possession but a gift we hold in common.
Courage belongs not to the brave but to those whose desire for love outweighs their wish to avoid being wounded. We are courageous because of and for communion.

We didn't know it at the time, but God wasn't just bringing us to a spacious place. God was making us a spacious place.

“courage is a circle ot communion. It is a place we return to, season after season, and a practice we choose again and again. And fed with our daily bread, the circle grows in meaning, scope, and strength.”

With our hands still empty, we watch as God takes our little bit, breaks it, and makes it more than enough to feed thousands.
The Christian life, the courageous life, is an invitation to show up every single day like that kid to watch Jesus bless your smallness as sacred, make breaking part of the blessing, and give more than enough for more than just you.

Courage is not something we have to muster up or manufacture for God. Courage is choosing to commune with someone who has already chosen to be with us. As psychiatrist Curt Thompson says, "Courage is not just about me having something that no one else has. Courage is about me having somebody else within me that enables me to do hard things that I otherwise wouldn't do on my own."
The Lord is our courage.

This book is like a cool drink in a wilderness.

What we see determines how we will live. And you were made to behold. God’s kindness follows us all the days of our lives, and we will dwell secure in the divine presence as we look for glimmers of goodness in our ordinary days. Prayer is just paying attention.

Beauty can bring you back home. Beauty tells your body it can be safe. Beauty is one of the surest ways back to the table with Christ, remembering and rising with the truth that our whole lives are still seen by God’s face and followed by his grace. You need glimmers of goodness to feel safe in God’s care, and noticing beauty will take you there.

Triggers take us to the place where grace can soothe our stress, where the Shepherd still stands with goodness and love in his hands, ready to reach toward us with glimmers of his kind plans. Glimmers are cues of safety that bring us back to our ventral vagal selves, calming our nervous systems out of survival mode back into connection and joy

When our bodies are full of fear and we feel like there must be someone to blame, we need beauty to bring us back to hearing Goodness and Love calling our name. Remember this ratio: Your body needs more cues of safety than cues of danger to rise. Stress releases its grip on our bodies when we notice the presence of goodness.