Good Morning Gorgeous,

It’s a brand new day. A fresh start. A new day to rise up and walk with boldness and strength and bravery that has been given to you by the power of the Holy Spirit.

My son Brycen is having surgery this morning to remove his adenoids and also tubes in his ears. It came as a surprise that he needed this after a routine ENT checkup. They said that his ear tubes had traveled back instead of out and are sitting on his eardrums. So they gotta come out by surgery. Due to other issues my son has had with sleep and congestion, the doctor recommended adenoids come out as well.

My little guy struggles some with anxious feelings and worries, especially in new situations. He needed all of the information, so he asked all of the questions….

Will it hurt?

Will I be awake?

Why do you have to do this surgery?

Will I be laying down or sitting up?

How long will it take?

Do I have to do this?

How long until you do the surgery?

And then at home, he went back and forth between fear and speaking life into himself. Here is what it looked like. Bedtime would come and the questions would start. Then he would say, “I am scared and I don’t want to have surgery.” And then out of the same breath he would say, “ I am going to feel so much better. I am going to be able to hear better. I need to do this. This surgery is going to go great. I am brave.”I didn’t even tell him to do this!

He just did it to reassure himself. And it was so precious to hear and watch. He would encourage himself, and pull himself right out of the pit of worry. This is a first for him! He would reassure himself and then pray, “Dear Lord, please let my surgery go well.” And then he would encourage himself some more and then pray more. This has been our bedtime routine for the past couple of nights.

So, I wanted to share with you all today that God gave you a strong spirit. He makes you brave and when you feel scared, you have power to speak life right into your soul. You can say:I am brave enough to walk through this. I will not crumble. I will not fall. My God will hold me up. He will equip me with everything needed for victory. He has already won the battle and is seated at the right Hand of the Father. Because of Christ’s victory, I am also made victorious. I am brave! I was not given a Spirit of fear, but of power and love and self discipline.

Dear Heavenly Father,Make us bold and brave and strong. Give us what we need to walk in strength and victory over every single thing that makes us anxious. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Before he went back we talked about how we can feel scared, but act brave. I told him, “It’s okay to be scared and feel worry, but as we show up for surgery, we are acting brave.”So gorgeous friends in Christ, when you rise with fear, but you move your feet anyway and show up in the hard spaces you are called to today, you are walking bravely.

Knees wobbling,

heart pounding,

yet moving is BRAVERY!!!

May you move boldly and bravely!

Vanessa Lynn

And just for fun! This is Brycen’s favorite song right now. We listened to it again and again on the way to the hospital. It’s fitting for all we are facing in the world right now.

https://youtu.be/6glQdaQUZ1U