Brave Words: I Believe

The years, they begin to stretch a little thinner with each turn of the calendar. There is always a slight pause at the realization, an imperceptible shake of the head, a quick tightening along the jaw bone.

And then the resignation and the practiced patience. The deep breath and the tight smile. Perhaps it is habit or even a feigned fortitude. Whatever it is, it pushes forward.

It must.

But this year’s turning almost undid me. It swelled loud and frightening and red and there was a hemorrhaging of questions and unknowns. There was fear. The cinch of my belt was acute and there was an ache deep within my belly.

And I found myself asking, no, begging, the question:

On how thin a line can one continue to balance?

But hidden within the possible answer was where my biggest fear actually lurked.

What if the answer was hidden in the hard truth of

giving up

and

giving over

and

giving into?

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I'm sharing my story of unbelief over at Kelli Woodford's place today. Kelli has been hosting a series on Brave Words and here are her words on this series:

"Writers see more clearly when they can cover an experience with words. Not to hide from it, but so that what is truest and perhaps most important about the experience is made manifest to eyes blind in all other directions.  This is my reason for writing this series. 
In it I hope to allow the courage God places in our hearts access to our tongue. That in looking at the many syllables of Truth, and how they differ for each of us, we can also learn to speak them bold when surrounded by the cacophonic glare of lies.  That we can recognize how God is speaking His courage through us more often than we know.  Oh, so much more often than we know."