Take courage, my friend

“2015: The Year of Courage.”

That’s what I see when I look in my journal on the page dated January 4, 2015.

I remember writing it. And I also remember how I felt when I wrote it: totally devoid of courage.

Nearly a year earlier, my sister had succumbed to cancer and had gone on ahead to her heavenly blessing. I felt like we were still reeling from the grief of watching her slip away in hospice.

My mother was getting sicker, in her tenth year of Alzheimer’s ravaging her mind and beginning to cruelly deprive her of control of bodily functions. Meanwhile, my father, in his nineties, was struggling to care for her.

Personally, I felt the weight of all of this, and the black void of depression was beginning to envelop me. I knew that big decisions were ahead for Mom and Dad, and yet I was struggling with the grief of losing my sister, which revived the grief of losing my other sister 30 years prior in a car accident. Plus the grief of slowly losing my mom, her life fading way over a period of years. And in the midst of this I was supposed to carry on with my job and my family. It was all too much.

As I looked ahead to the year 2015 that early January morning, I knew there was one thing I needed above all others. One word that encapsulated what I needed most from Christ at that moment: Courage.

At that moment, I began a journey that I am still on today. It’s a journey to glean what I can from God’s Word about what it means to have courage, the kind of courage that Christ gives His children.

I’m excited to bring you along on this journey as I share what I’m learning. Because one thing I have learned this year is clear: Everyone is either in a time of trouble, or just experienced trouble, or is about to head into trouble. And, thus, everyone needs courage.