Tessa Winn’s Reviews > The Lord Is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love > Status Update

an older definition of courage that dates back to the 1300s is “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”

Your anointing is a gift given not for what you have done but out of God’s love. Divine love ensures who you will become.

This is what I know: the betrayal of another cannot take your belovedness away. Darkness cannot steal your inheritance. Evil cannot revoke your anointing.

Because Goodness made his home in the middle of humanity's hurt, Divine Love is always meeting us in the middle of what seems diametrically opposed to knit us back together by kneeling at the foot of the cross.

Prayer is not constant positivity. It is honesty held in our hands and hurled at the sky. Strangely,
honesty about our hopelessness is what revives our hope.

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

Fear is just courage's preamble. When we practice remembering that the Spirit of Christ is our companion, fear simply becomes one more prompt to pay attention to the voice and presence of Love. Fear doesn't have to be an enemy to conquer. It can be a place to be companioned by Love.

In the silence, our bodies learn
to trust that God is more near than we feared and we are more loved than we imagined.

Porges teaches that lowering auditory stimulation helps the nervous system develop trust.
When it comes to developing trust, less is more. Less noise. Fewer words. Less effort.
As Porges has said, " 'Less' enables the nervous system to catch up."

You cannot should yourself into being soothed. You cannot shame your way out of stress. You have to love your way there.

The most damaging story in the world is not of a creatorless creation but a creation that must be transcended. We pit our souls against our bodies, even though God strangely chose embodiment as the artistry of salvation.