What Is Brave?

I've read some good books lately.  The kind that just really stick with you.  That you keep thinking about days after you read the last page.  My husband knows Shauna, Rebekah, & Annie because I talk about them like they're my friends.  (And I really think we would be friends if I knew them in real life.)

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Right now I'm reading Let's All Be Brave.  And it is just one of those books that I'm going to keep thinking about.  That's something I love about a book.  It isn't just a mass of pages or words you read on a kindle screen.  It's more than a physical item.  It's something that becomes a part of you.  It changes who you are & plays a role in your story.

I don't guess I really thought much about bravery.  But now, I'm seeing it everywhere.  And maybe most importantly, I'm seeing it in myself.  I've never thought I was a brave person.  And I still don't really think that.  But I can look at my life now & see little moments of bravery.  Moments I'm proud of.  Moments when I made the right decision even when it was hard.  Even when it was scary.

I see this when I chose a college where none of my friends were going.  When I joined a sorority even though it was really out of character for me.  I see this when, after college, I moved to a city where I knew one person, for a job that was nothing like what I wanted.  But that proved to be just where I needed to be.  When we moved to California, we left all our family, all our friends, everything that was familiar.  And I think that was brave.  Six months after we were married.  When everything was still new.  And that was a good decision.

Most recently, I've seen this with our shop.  Before I talked to Rachel about this big idea (that just keeps on growing), Grayson told me he thought I should do it.  He spoke bravery to me.  When we tell someone else "you can do it," we instill a little bit of bravery in them.  When we hit "publish" on that first item, not knowing if we would even sell a single thing, that was brave.  Every time we advertise by reaching out to a blogger whose name people know, that is brave.  Every time we try something new that we've never done before, that's brave.  And I'm proud of us for that.

I want to keep taking the brave steps.  I want to dream big dreams & follow where those take me.