What makes a person brave?
If there is one lesson I’ve learned in my years of young adulthood, it is that life tends to take all of us to unexpected places.
Amazing places. Hard places. Good places. Sad places. Places of adventure and places of normalcy. Places that bring us things we never dreamed of — or thought we’d handle.
And sometimes, life demands a far greater level of courage than we ever thought possible.
“I think we can all picture people we know or have heard of who are “brave” people. They are strong. Courageous. Seemingly unswervable. They naturally live in this place called “bravery”, or else they moved there long ago and have set up permanent residence.”
But maybe, after all, true courage is something different. What if courage is nothing more than a decision?
Or a lifestyle of decisions? Simple ones — but the sort of decisions that spark an ever-increasing, life-changing ripple effect?
My own journey toward “brave” has been a lifelong one, and honestly, I don’t think it’ll ever be over. Remarkable courage — the sort of courage it takes to step out of a perfectly good boat and walk toward your Savior on stormy waves — isn’t the type of thing you can perfect in a few short months or years.
Courage is a lifestyle. The sort of lifestyle that transforms families and churches and communities and legacies. The kind that allows us to faithfully love a single child or tackle a world-sized problem.
And so this blog is simply a glimpse — a year-long journal, if you will — of one young adult’s long road toward courage…the sort of courage that can transform anyone’s very ordinary life into an extraordinary story.
The sort of story that only the Savior can write.
And if you’ve ever struggled to find the courage to take a step…to catch hold of something new…to let go of something dear…to push past your limits…to step back and wait…then this “journal” is for you, too.
We’ll keep choosing courage — choice by choice, decision by decision.
One foot in front of the other.
There’s a lot we can learn about courage on the long road to Brave.
The Road to Brave 