Bold and Brave

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Watching my children experience the ups and downs of life has brought a new revelation about learning by trial and error and the expedience of valuable life lessons. 

Life is indeed a great teacher!

A trial comes, an error is made, a lesson is learnt ... 

and in the process character is forged. This trying, testing and proving of one self during threatening winds of change can shake and intimidate.

Helping my children to navigate their own trials has helped me contemplate the significance of the storm! 

More often than not it is in the trial that we truly grow ...  a trial is an opportunity. Seriously, it is true! Trials offer us the opportunity to learn in very profound ways, lessons are learnt that might not necessarily be discovered otherwise. 

I am fully convinced of this because, I have grown through pain, heartache and loss. I wish I could say that my deepest heart change and personal growth happened during happy times or during the easy moments of my life, but it just isn't true. Pain is a great teacher, it is a lesson that leaves us marked to the core for a very long time. Somehow, in this very place we learn and grow. 

After all, if we didn’t have pain or trials, would we learn?, would we change? ...  or be motivated to change? It is in these broken places that our heart and soul seems to grow the most. 

How we face and navigate the trial is the determining factor between an opportunity lost ... or an opportunity won. The squeeze in that moment pushes us to the precipice of our vulnerabilities and fears. In that moment we can take flight or stand and fight!

Amidst the greatest trials of life, I have learned to stop running from it and turn to it. Outrunning an approaching storm is futile. 

To face the storm head on and fail to wither at its ferocity is audacious and courageous - it is bold and brave!

Entering the storm based on a deep conviction, firmly rooted in an unwavering faith changes everything. I discovered a quietness deep inside the eye of the storm, a stillness and calm of magnificent proportions - a peace of overwhelming depth and dimension. It truly transcends understanding, amazing ha! ... and it is in this place, surrounded by this All encompassing peace that brings me to my knees and fills my heart with unending gratitude.

Phil 4:6-7