The Lord Is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love

by K.J. Ramsey

what your body needs to rise. Two things bring us back home from the bottom of stress: breath and the attuned, compassionate presence of someone else.

It’s said that Saint Augustine put it this way: solvitur ambulando. “It is solved by walking.”

Fear is a physiological prompt to seek safety in the presence of Christ and remember your place in his heart.

Courage is not the absence of anxiety but the practice of trusting that we will be held and loved no matter what happens.20

Even your cries are part of repentance.9 Your fear, shame, and anger are cries of your soul asking to be sought. Repentance is not reprimanding yourself for getting lost; it is turning toward yourself as someone who is always worthy of being found.

The sharing of a painful story should always be a moment to suture and soothe rather than size up or sermonize.

My therapist once prayed over me that where there has been cursing, God would bring a new blessing.