a note about the bold
Someone recently told me, "If you struggle with boldness, there is no hope for any of us." to which someone else said, "You are probably the boldest person I've ever met."
This is not a blog about me, though.
This is a post about becoming the boldest person you've ever met, and how I am just a normal girl from Wisconsin.
I joke the greatest disservice my parents did to me growing up was to forgetting to tell me there are limits to what I can do. Now, don't get me wrong - my parents were not supporters of the "you can be anything you want to be in life" mantra. I suck at lots of things, and it was pretty evident to them and to me that if I had tried to pursue after any of them, it was not going to go well for me. However, as far as things I had aptitude for and interest in, there was no limit.
Enter YWAM. End game.
Friends, I am not even kidding here, but if you think for two seconds YWAM leaves you when you leave YWAM, it's not true. Like a dormant disease, it will stick around in your blood stream and slowly take over, pollute, and seek to eat away your worldview and life as you know it until you come to grips with the fact that your life is worthless and dead if you aren't doing what you are supposed to be doing.
What does this have to do with boldness?
YWAM teaches you a few things. One is that you don't have to be particularly qualified to do a task. You just have to love Jesus. It also teaches you that no task isn't your job, so just go ahead and do it.
YWAM gives you the audacity to start being bold in things that you seemingly have no business being bold about. YWAM taught me the boldness in willingness, not in qualification.
Bob Goff says love is it's own calling card, and that resonates so deeply with me. I don't have to worry about being qualified/doing it exactly right because that's not my job. I just have to love well, and that message will end up speaking back to the one true Love of all - God, who, as the Bible says, is Love.
When I heard about the Dignity Project, I didn't wait. I started sewing and asking friends to sew. At this point, dozens of you have gotten involved and I am overwhelmed, grateful, and excited to serve the women in Uganda.
When MOPs needed a co-coordinator, I didn't overthink the whole "I haven't even gone through an entire years of MOPs myself" thing. I just "yes", because there was a need. Guys, I am NOT qualified to co-coordinate MOPs and have zero clue about what I am doing. But I'm doing it.
When a friend told me they need someone to organize food for the homeless one time a month for 100+ people, I reached out to another friend and said, "Will you do this with me?". We are NOT expert homeless-feeders. Just two women who are willing to make sandwiches (which, btw, I got TONS of assembly line sandwich making experience in YWAM, so I'm feeling pretty good about that). It's going to require a sacrifice of other uses of our time, but it's probably what we need to be doing.
I could give more examples, but again, this isn't about me. It's about saying "yes" and trusting God to do the rest. And it doesn't have to be crazy. You can love your kids well, treat your co-workers kindly, work in your own sphere of influence. It can be small, like we are asking for less Christmas gifts and more donations to Samaritan's Purse who are working with Syrian refugees. But say yes, be bold, and then the next thing you know, you are a bold person.
"Audaces fortuna iuvat" (latin)- Fortune favors the bold.
This is not a blog about me, though.
This is a post about becoming the boldest person you've ever met, and how I am just a normal girl from Wisconsin.
I joke the greatest disservice my parents did to me growing up was to forgetting to tell me there are limits to what I can do. Now, don't get me wrong - my parents were not supporters of the "you can be anything you want to be in life" mantra. I suck at lots of things, and it was pretty evident to them and to me that if I had tried to pursue after any of them, it was not going to go well for me. However, as far as things I had aptitude for and interest in, there was no limit.
Enter YWAM. End game.
Friends, I am not even kidding here, but if you think for two seconds YWAM leaves you when you leave YWAM, it's not true. Like a dormant disease, it will stick around in your blood stream and slowly take over, pollute, and seek to eat away your worldview and life as you know it until you come to grips with the fact that your life is worthless and dead if you aren't doing what you are supposed to be doing.
What does this have to do with boldness?
YWAM teaches you a few things. One is that you don't have to be particularly qualified to do a task. You just have to love Jesus. It also teaches you that no task isn't your job, so just go ahead and do it.
YWAM gives you the audacity to start being bold in things that you seemingly have no business being bold about. YWAM taught me the boldness in willingness, not in qualification.
Bob Goff says love is it's own calling card, and that resonates so deeply with me. I don't have to worry about being qualified/doing it exactly right because that's not my job. I just have to love well, and that message will end up speaking back to the one true Love of all - God, who, as the Bible says, is Love.
When I heard about the Dignity Project, I didn't wait. I started sewing and asking friends to sew. At this point, dozens of you have gotten involved and I am overwhelmed, grateful, and excited to serve the women in Uganda.
When MOPs needed a co-coordinator, I didn't overthink the whole "I haven't even gone through an entire years of MOPs myself" thing. I just "yes", because there was a need. Guys, I am NOT qualified to co-coordinate MOPs and have zero clue about what I am doing. But I'm doing it.
When a friend told me they need someone to organize food for the homeless one time a month for 100+ people, I reached out to another friend and said, "Will you do this with me?". We are NOT expert homeless-feeders. Just two women who are willing to make sandwiches (which, btw, I got TONS of assembly line sandwich making experience in YWAM, so I'm feeling pretty good about that). It's going to require a sacrifice of other uses of our time, but it's probably what we need to be doing.
I could give more examples, but again, this isn't about me. It's about saying "yes" and trusting God to do the rest. And it doesn't have to be crazy. You can love your kids well, treat your co-workers kindly, work in your own sphere of influence. It can be small, like we are asking for less Christmas gifts and more donations to Samaritan's Purse who are working with Syrian refugees. But say yes, be bold, and then the next thing you know, you are a bold person.
"Audaces fortuna iuvat" (latin)- Fortune favors the bold.
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