Hello Faith Hello Courage

A few weeks ago I randomly - with my eyes closed, like I was making a wish - picked a rock from my rock bowl. The rocks are a part of my home decor collection with Creative Co-op - they says things like "grace", "hope", "tenderness", "courage", etc. They are hard to find online (expensive to ship heavy rocks) but perhaps you've seen them in a boutique! 

Anyway, I closed my eyes and picked out a rock, knowing that I would choose just the rock my heart most needed to see. That's how faith/serendipity/magic works, right? 
I got the faith rock. Hmmm. I have been thinking about it ever since - how it's been in my life, how it hasn't been in my life, how it's not been a religious piece for me, but rather a spiritual thing for me, how I've often dismissed it yet how I've clung to it, how I - up until I pulled it out of the rock bowl with my eyes squeezed shut - hadn't realized how strongly I've needed to cultivate it in my life. One of the things that came up for me was how I seem to have a lot of faith in myself but how I often don't allow myself to fully have faith in other people (yikes). I'm learning....always. 
Signed/matted prints available here.

It's been about six weeks since I pulled the faith rock. And what I can tell you is this. 
Faith lives inside the pauses between progress, between acceptance, between healing. It securely, without fail, holds the divide between those long, sometimes deep, sometimes painful pauses. And while Grace gifts us all the time we need to figure it all out, to grieve, to ignite possibility, to find our way, faith is what holds us all the while. It is enduring, always there, and it will never fail us. It is letting go, knowing it will be the bridge from one season of our lives to the next. It is trusting the process as we embrace change and surrender our fears. It is believing, with tremendous courage, that all the lessons, the work, the leaps, the falls, the struggles, the celebrations is for a purpose much larger than we can fathom - an ultimately good, beautiful, worth it purpose.  
My faith is growing. I'm seeing now all the ways that I deeply depend on it, how it has held the divide for me, time and time again. Without it, nothing would be possible. And one thing is for sure:

Courage does not exist without an existence of faith. And faith does not exist without the courage to believe. 

They go together. Like love, and .... love.





PS: I am hosting a HUGE Hip Hip Hooray Giveaway Party here in this space on Thursday. One day only. Major prizes and party favors. All free. All awesome. And YOU are invited. Put on your party dress, friends. And I'll see you here on Thursday!
XXO, Kelly Rae