God's Brave Women - Liz's Story

God's Brave Women - Liz's Story

Sometimes, bravery looks like a whole lot of questions. Sometimes it’s sitting, letting the questions come, and allowing yourself to be in the space where the absence of answers feels dark and daunting and void of faith.

This year, this is what “brave womanhood” has looked like for me.

There are lots of ways I’ve been brave in my life. I lived in South Africa for a month, with twelve strangers, when I was only a junior in high school. I traveled through Western Europe for six weeks after college, living in sketchy hostels and eating bread and apples because my budget said I couldn’t afford a backpacking trip, but I was going to do it anyway. I’ve zip-lined. I’ve skydived. I speak every year in front of hundreds of people, sharing personal stories and allowing myself to be emotionally vulnerable. My husband and I are in the midst of a three-year journey to adopt our first child, from a country we know little about. These are all my stories, and they all require bravery in some form. And yet, these stories, in their different ways, are easier stories to share.

This year, I’m learning a quieter, shyer story of Bravery. This year, I’m wandering in a desert, and being brave is often getting up and daily letting the desert paths guide me. It’s walking thirsty, tired and uncertain. But it’s walking the path nonetheless.

My husband and I have wrestled over the last few years with our place in the church. We have wrestled with our faith. Not because faith is absent, but instead we’ve wondered if “our faith” looks the way it does because of where we were raised or the church we’ve chosen to make our home or the widening list of other external factors. We’ve wrestled with what “our faith” really looks like to us – with what it looks like to me. I’m thankful to have someone to wrestle alongside, intimately, on this desert journey. And I’m thankful for others, who I really believe, God has brought to us. So many others who are also wrestling and taking up the journey with us.

"Because faith is still there, and my relationship with Jesus is still so important to me. But it looks different – really different from what it’s ever looked like before."