March 2013
My dining room table, Nashville, Tennessee
I’m not brave. I lack courage. I’m thirty-three years old, and I sometimes cry when I leave my parents’ home in Georgia to drive back to my little brick house in Nashville. I have never jumped out of a plane, and I only ride roller coasters when I’m trying to impress a boy.
Some people live for an adrenaline rush. I live for a sugar rush.
I don’t think it is fun to risk, to gamble, to possibly lose. I like safety, smart choices, and learning the easy way. Tell me it’s a bad idea and I’m going to believe you.
A few months ago, my friend Lyndsay’s car ran out of gas. (Something that does not happen to me because I do not let my gas gauge go below a quarter of a tank. I never once saw the “low gas” light come on in my first car. I don’t know if it even worked. Never risked it.) But Lyndsay is a natural-born risker, and she pushes that two-door coupe to its gassy limits.
So her car coasted into Nichole’s parking lot, and Lyndsay carefully directed it into a slot. It was out of gas, out of fumes, literally just rolling because the wheels are round. Before sitting down for dinner with Nichole, Lyndsay called her boyfriend, who brought over a can of gas. While she was still at the table, he filled up her tank with a few gallons of gas and then drove home. When she was ready to leave, her car worked fine.
Lyndsay told me the next day, “That did not hurt enough for me not to do that again.”
She’s the valedictorian at the School of Learning the Hard Way. And she wears it like a Ms. Tennessee sash and crown.
That’s how risk takers roll. That is not how I roll.
But I want to be brave.
And I’m going to ask you to be brave too, even if you, like me, don’t take to it naturally. I’m here to ask you to please do that thing in your heart that scares you to death. To make that move or leap or step or sound you wouldn’t have made a week ago.
There is no formula and there are no rules. There is the Bible, our guidebook for all things, but other than that, being brave is organic and spiritual and a unique journey for each person.
I won’t be making a list of brave things you should do. I won’t be saying, “Here is exactly what courage looks like” or “If you want to really risk in a way that impacts the people around you, do these particular things.” I don’t think that works. I don’t think you need me to tell you what to do. I think you know. I think you just need a little pregame warm-up. A little something to oomph you along. An understanding of the map you are holding.
I had lunch with my friends Chris and Jimmy this week, and we were talking about this very subject. And Chris said, “Courage implies action, like you are going somewhere or going to do something.” Courage. Maps. Movement. We talked about what it means to be on your map and off your map and whether there’s a map at all.
I left that barbecue lunch buzzing with hope and ideas. I love talking about what courage looks like (probably more than I like actually living it). I think an appreciation for brave people and brave moments has been in me forever. To this day, my favorite Steven Curtis Chapman song is “Burn the Ships” from way back in the mid-90s. It’s a song about Spaniards sailing for Mexico in 1519, and upon arrival and in the midst of many hardships they wished they could go back. Instead they decided to burn their ships. Stay there forever. And figure out what that life would hold.
Brave.
That stuck with me when I first heard the song as an awkward middle schooler — sometimes you set sail without a view of the destination, trusting the tools you’ve got. And once you get there, you stay. You move forward, not backward. You burn your ships.
In my mind, when I think about you and me and where we are going, I see ships sailing and maps waving in the breeze and forks in the road. I see airplane arcs on tiny television screens and I see navigational tools strewn across a desk.
I see action. Movement. Travel.
X marks the spot, but it’s not about the X. (Also, it’s not about your ex.) It’s about getting there. It’s about the brave things you have to do between here and there to make you the person your X deserves. (Again, not what your ex deserves. You have got to get over him or her.)
But here’s the problem: I’m known for getting lost. I cannot be trusted to lead if we need to get from here to there. So if you’re on a journey or an expedition or an adventure, I’m going to get you lost.
If I had my pickings of what flaws to be known for, I’d go for something like “too pretty” or “too nice.” Instead it’s usually “too directionally challenged to be in charge at this moment.” (Or any moment of travel, really.) Mama always said I’d marry a mapmaker — it would be the only way to balance out the deficit in my skill set. So any cartographers out there, give a girl a call.
I love maps. Before Siri would talk to me on my iPhone and tell me when to turn right and when to turn left and redirect me because somehow I had still missed the turn, I had a lot of maps in my car. I still have a few because, you know, I’m me and I get lost and I can’t get too much directional assistance.
I need maps. And so do you. Maps of the mall because, seriously, I just need to pop into Gap for a breezy white cardigan. Maps of the airport because Atlanta’s airport is practically its own city. Maps of your town and maps of your state. Maps of the places you’ve been that you never want to forget and maps of the places you want to go to.
Your life, start to finish, is a map. And we are HERE. That’s all I know. I don’t know where you’ve been and I don’t know where your map will take you. I only know there will be moments when you feel like the map has turned or changed and moments when you realize you’ve read this map wrong all along. You will crumple it up and throw it down, only to return to it for direction once you finish your cryfest. I get it. I know.
But it’s your map. Not my map. Or my cousin’s map. Or your spouse’s map. It’s yours. And there is something so sweet about God doing life that way. Giving you your own rivers to cross and mountains to climb and forks in the roads of your life that I will never come to. You get to be brave right there, in each of those places. Bravery begets bravery. If you’ll be brave, I’ll be brave. And when I am brave, you feel like you can be too. We are holding hands and I promise I won’t let go.
Let’s all be brave.