Season 3, Episode 2: Screw Your Courage to the Sticking Place and We'll Not Fail

When I was younger, I used to look at myself in the mirror and wonder what I was going to look like when I was 15, or 20, or 25. Looking back, this was probably because my sister is almost a decade older than me, so looking at her felt a bit like seeing her future self, or...my future self? I was never quite sure about that, but what I did know is that Leah always looked so confidently herself.

She presented herself as independent, as someone who didn't need the approval of others to pioneer a new idea or to accomplish her goals. I've always compared myself to her (what little sister doesn't, in some way, compare herself to her older sister, after all?) and in doing so, I often compared our confidence levels and achievements, which is a slippery slope if I've ever known one--but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

A few years back, I wrote about what a legacy looked like, felt like, and meant to me. A peer of mine had struck up a conversation with me in a hallway of my high school and casually remarked that "I was a legend" at the school. To be honest, I can't tell you what I responded because even now, I'm still floored by the comment. But I can tell you that senior-year-me started thinking about legacies at length, and how to foster a community that I would be proud to leave behind me.

Fast forward three years, and I'm at UMD asking people questions, living my life, and generally trying to get things done. Typical college, right?

But there's more than that, or at least, that's what I've been learning.

A few months ago, I wrote about courage, or more specifically, boldness in the face of fear. I tacked on Joshua 1:9 at the end as a reminder (mainly for myself, let's be honest) of what I believe to be true, that we can be strong and courageous, but only because of the incredible God who stands behind and before us.

So, all that to say, you'd think I'd have grown up by now. You'd think that in all of my writing and reflecting and growth, that I'd learned what confidence and courage look like, right?

But there's a hard truth behind that assumption, and it's that I haven't--or at least, I haven't mastered the practice of either. I still constantly doubt myself in various situations, and I often still have to fight my instinct to shy away from doing what's courageous.

Is that a failure? You tell me.

There's a big part of me that sees this whole college thing as a learning experience, and if these are the lessons that are meant to be retained, then maybe I'm not passing with flying colors right now. Maybe, for once in my life, I'm just an average student, sitting at a C, and to be honest, in the grand scheme of life, I'm actually (weirdly) okay with that grade.

That's not to say I don't know anything about either--confidence or courage--but rather to acknowledge that I've not mastered their application.

For example, let's talk confidence for a minute.

In almost all scenarios, I hesitate in wanting to put myself out there for a relationship, whether it be friendly or romantic. I push people away as soon as they start getting too close, because I've seen what can happen when my trust is put in the wrong people, and I don't ever want to have to experience that again. On a human level, that makes sense...Kind of.

It's the idea that if you've been burned once, why go back for another round of flames. Emotionally, this makes sense to me, but spiritually it doesn't, and I suppose that's why it's been hitting me hard recently.

God didn't call me to play it safe. He didn't say "Amanda, I know what you're going to experience in your lifetime, and once you've felt the sting of betrayal, I fully condone your decision to never open up to anyone in the hopes that you'll never feel that way again. Stay safe. Stay comfortable. Stay unafraid." Not in the slightest.

Instead, He gently guides me to the edge of a precipice and asks me to jump. I stand there, on that ledge, and look down. The bottom is hidden, it's beyond my comprehension to fathom what it looks like, or what could be down there. I anxiously wrap my arms around my stomach to convince myself that the harness is still attached. I swallow and glance straight out. It won't be as bad if I don't look down, right? I shuffle my feet to the very edge, shake out my arms, close my eyes, and jump.

For a moment, I'm falling (or is it flying? I can't tell.) and I can't bring myself to open my eyes, afraid of the imagery that might greet me when I do. But then I feel the cord tug at my waist, and for a moment I'm terrified that I've made the wrong choice, that the mechanisms keeping me safe have all malfunctioned, but then...then I jerk back up. The cord is secure and I’m suspended by a force much stronger than what I myself could have produced. From that moment on, I’m entranced by the feeling of the wind rushing against my face, the inertia making my heart jump into my throat with every snap of the cord, the weightless feeling that I can appreciate now that my mind has grasped that I won’t be falling to my doom.

When I retell the story, I won’t include those initial details, though. You’ll never hear me speak of the struggle I put up as I was being led towards the edge, nor of the gut-wrenching fear that gripped me when my feet left the ground. Instead, you'll probably hear something like this: "It was great, absolutely incredible! I had the time of my life, and I wish I could do it again!” In the retelling, the fear is negligible. It’s a stray comma in the larger and more important sentence about the experience. But it’s important nonetheless, because that fear, that apprehension is where confidence and courage meet. But we’ll get back to that later.

God puts me on each ledge for a reason. He gives me a chance to jump time and time again, never forcing my feet to leave the ground, never preventing me from turning around and running back to more level footing. The choice is mine, every time: stay safe & stay comfortable, or take a leap and see where He’ll take me. Time and time again, I’m faced with this decision, and while I know that He’s calling me out into uncharted territory, I’ll evaluate the choices, decide I’m not capable of achieving whatever the potential goal is at the end of risk-taking, and then stay right where I am. Comfortable.

But I don’t think that’s cutting it anymore. Why? Glad you asked. It’s because I took the chance once, and now I know what it feels like.

To go back to our analogy of bungee jumping, after the first time I decided to jump, I wanted to do it again-- my desire for sparking adrenal reactions was triggered. In short, I became an adrenaline junkie. Except in this case, it’s not adrenaline rushes that I’m chasing after. It’s getting to see what God can do.

At this point, you may be a bit confused about where I’m going with this. Trust me, I can see why you would be, so let’s review the facts.

If taking a literal leap of faith is equated to bungee-jumping, then after seeing God successfully support me shouldn't that be enough to encourage me to follow His call again?

That’s where my issue is. I fully know God can use me, I’ve seen it happen. I’ve jumped into a cavern where I couldn’t see the bottom, and He’s caught me and allowed me to soar. So why is it so hard to stand on a ledge again?

That’s where confidence comes back. I can have a bit of a ten-track mind (in contrast to a straightforward one-track mind) sometimes and I show up on a ledge and immediately start doubting, not God’s will or process, but my own.

I literally have enough confidence in my own failure to convince myself not to try, which, according to a great many visionaries, is tantamount to failure in itself.

I had a nice 90-something minute conversation with a friend of mine the other night where we talked about this, and he provided me with a few nice quotes, which spurred me to look for some myself, so here’s a few that I really enjoyed from other people:

“You’ve got to experience failure to understand that you can survive it”

“Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”

“If something’s important enough, you should try, even if the probable outcome is failure.”

You might be able to gather than I’m opposed to failing. In itself, I suppose that’s not a bad thing. I mean, no one goes into their future profession saying “Okay, I finally got here, let’s go fail!” That’s just not how it works. The problem for me is that I’m not just opposed, I’m afraid. It’s one thing to not want to fail, it’s something differently entirely to not try at all for fear of failure. I guess you could say that it goes back to this standard of excellence that I set for myself.

If I’m not doing wonderfully in every aspect of my life, am I failing? If I’m not going to achieve my goal, what’s the point in trying? If I know I’m going to lose, is the battle worth it?

As I was talking to my friend about this, he said something that struck me.

“Excellence isn’t discounted if you fail.”

I’m going to be entirely honest with you and tell you that I’ve never thought that in my life. In fact, I’d say that I always thought the opposite. Any personal excellence of mine was marred by whatever failure had come along with it.

BUT THAT THOUGHT PROCESS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. My head knows that what he said is true, but my heart is so convinced sometimes that this battle or endeavor or even this journey of life is mine and mine alone that I forget that God can take the messiest, most broken perceived failures and accomplish stunningly beautiful things through them.

So that’s where confidence comes into play. But I told you there’s an intersection point for confidence and courage.

If a lack of confidence is what has me turning around and running down the mountain instead of jumping, courage brings me right up to the edge, takes a deep breath, and leaps-taking me with it.

Let’s be honest, failing isn’t a pleasant experience, going into any scenario knowing you could fail is scary, and things that are scary are often avoided. But courage covers that. Courage allows you to walk boldly into scenarios that you would’ve shied away from, to confidently face your fears and walk away victorious.

I’ve talked before about the desire to be reckless that I had in high school, and how all of my friends made fun of me for it. It’s funny to see how that’s changed.

I don’t want to be reckless, I want to be bold.

I don’t want to be rebellious, I want to be brave.

I don’t want to be rule-breaking, I want to be courageously leading.

The stupid part of all of this is that I can. I know I can, through God, because I’ve literally seen it happen. So why do I doubt it? How did I get to a point where I assume that God is done working things in my life for both His and my favor? I know He’s not done with me (if He was, I’d be concerned- I’m fully aware that I’ve got growing and learning to do), so why do I even entertain that possibility?

It comes back to what I was saying at the beginning of this post. I always wanted to know what I was going to be when I was older, and as I’ve grown up, I’ve allowed certain assumptions about my person to stick.

An example: The only jewelry I’ve ever really worn has been rings; everything else was too distracting to me, or irritated my skin, or got caught in my hair. I started looking at rings when I was in middle school, and I remember going to stores with my mother and picking one or two out to try on and her sharing her opinion. I also remember my mother telling me that wearing too many rings didn’t look right on me, and the way that I just blindly accepted that. As I got into high school, I saw girls who seemingly effortlessly pulled off multiple rings on their hands, and I remember thinking that they looked so cool, but that I could never do that. Flash forward to last Thursday, and I’m at Cru, playing with the worship team after a particularly stressful day, and I look down at my hands while I’m playing the piano, and it suddenly just hits me. I see all six rings that are on my fingers, and I get this weirdly peaceful thought that I’m exactly who I’ve always wanted to be.

At the time, I took it kind of lightly, just seeing the rings and thinking “Oh, yeah. Hm. I guess I did become the person I wanted to be, I mean, I am wearing multiple rings.” But a little while later, it really hit me. Not only had God molded me into a person who was confident enough to wear those rings, but He had answered other desires in my life that I didn’t even know I had needed.

I mean, shoot, as a middle schooler, I wanted a list of things:

-to be able to wear multiple rings

-to be secure in my faith the way my sister seemed to be

-to get to play music in the future

-to have a group of friends who loved me, not just two or three

-to go to school at the University of Maryland and study Criminology

And now in College, here I am

-wearing multiple rings

-growing in my faith, and making it a priority in my life

-playing music every week with a

-group of friends who love me at

-the University of Maryland where I’m studying Criminology.

I literally have become the person my middle-school self wanted to be, but in ways I couldn’t have ever foreseen. I had such a far-off vision for the future that all of the plans along the way that failed seemed insurmountable, and I think that’s the root of this doubt and this fear.

If I’m focusing on a part of my life that isn’t constant, isn’t yet defined, isn’t solidified, then how would I ever be able to feel comfortable with taking a chance. If every decision I make has the potential to destroy my plans for my future--and more importantly, if that’s the outcome I’m focusing on-- then it makes sense that I’m scared.

But here’s the thing, I’ve prayed it enough to know that it’s true: God is good today, He was good yesterday, and He will be good tomorrow, next week, or 10 years down the road. There’s no variability to His goodness, His righteousness, or His love. Where humans falter, He stands firm. One of my favorite passages in the bible is Psalm 46, which begins by saying “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.” He is our strength, the source of our courage and bravery and confidence. So even though it can be hard to feel confident in myself sometimes, I know that God’s got my back in every endeavor, and that every outcome will be used for good.

It’s been awhile, I’m glad to be back. The word of this month has been overwhelmed, and maybe that bleeds into my writing...I’m not quite sure. Earlier this week, I listened to the song Overwhelmed and found myself struck by a set of lyrics:

“I delight myself in you,

Captivated by your beauty

I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by you.

God, I run into your arms,

Unashamed because of mercy,

I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by you.”

And it got me thinking about how funny it is that one word can be used in two different contexts, in my case, one of stress and tension, and in the song, one of joy and grace and love. This last week has been me finding the balance between those two, I think. It’s been falling down and observing the scraped knee and saying it was worth it to try again, and opening up to friends of mine about how I’m really feeling.

It’s been hard. It’s been uncomfortable. But it’s good.

My favorite quote that I found about failure went something like this:

“If you’re passionate about something, then you’re willing to fail for it. Likewise, if you’re not willing to fail for something, then you’re not really passionate about it at all.”

I’m getting there. The more I think about the things I care about, the more convicted I am to get back up and keep trying, even after being knocked down.

So welcome to Sophomore year, the year Amanda learned what a fight looks like, and trained hard.

Signing off,

Amanda