We have this hope, so we are very brave. 2 Corinthians 3:12
I was recently asked to review Brave Girls 365-Day Devotional
If you have followed me long on this blog you know that the original blog name God gave me was “Life Outside the Shell”. That name still lives on today but just as a tab on this blog under my name so I also have a landing place for First Fruit Fitness.
The short story on me is that I grew up a shy and timid girl. I clearly remember moments of my youth when friends would be trying something new and I would pretend to not be interested and not join them. However, I was very interested but fear of failure held me back from participating. I spent years of my life not participating and taking risk for fear of failure and fear of what man would think of me if I did fail. When I think about this it makes me boiling mad. While I can’t change my past I can reshape my future and hopefully inspire a few people to come with me along the way.
The story of how God brought me “outside my shell” is a bit long so I will save that for another day. But you do need to know that He did bring me outside my shell. It didn’t happen over night but instead one step at a time. I remember waking up one day in my mid-twenties and feeling sick and tired of not doing the things God has put on my heart. I asked God to help me and He asked me to take baby steps. For me, baby steps literally meant saying hello to a stranger in the store or introducing myself to people at life group. Each time I took a baby step I learned that I was still alive to tell the story. As I grew, the baby steps weren’t so baby anymore but they were exactly what I needed to stretch me outside of my comfort zone.
It was around that time that an opportunity landed in my lap for me to teach group fitness classes. For a girl who considered herself shy I thought I might die right then and there. I would get so nervous the day I was supposed to teach a class that I would lose my appetite and have to go to the bathroom several times a day(if you know what I mean). I wanted to quit so many times but something inside of me(the holy spirit) said “no, keep going”. I had this quote written on a sticky note on my bathroom mirror for years:
Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.
When I looked up the word “brave”, I found it means:
ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage.
Because of my past experience in letting fear hold me back from facing possible danger or pain I am very passionate about ensuring my girls don’t make the same mistakes. This Brave Girls devotional is the perfect tool to teach our daughters what it means to be brave and how to do that in real life. Being brave isn’t just reserved for heroes but is something that is walked out in our everyday life. Each devotional is only one page long and starts with a verse, has a short devotional and ends with a prayer. My oldest daughter is loving it!
Would you like to WIN a copy of this Brave Girls Devotional? Enter the rafflecopter below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You can also purchase a copy here: Brave Girls 365-Day Devotional
*Please note: this post contains affiliate links & I was given a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review*
Thanks for sharing! My hope is that my girls will always be brave enough to do what’s right without fear of judgment from others.
Amen to that for my girls too!
I would say I had to be most brave in losing my dad so early in life as well as going through a divorce at the same time. I have grown so much from those experiences alone and even when I fell down for a while, God picked me back up and has said I’m stronger than I think ❤
Oh wow Kimberly, I would say so! You are quite brave.
My Girls would love this! The world is a scary place and our girls need this kind of encouragement and direction! Thank you for sharing.
I do no have any children, but I have five amazing nieces that are growing up fast. I would love to give the oldest or second oldest a copy of this as they are both voracious readers and growing up to know the Lord. I hope that they will always look to help others. My oldest niece always extends a hand and is quick to be a friend to children in her class who feel left out. Her teacher says she is one of the first to help another child in the room who has autism. Her heart is big and brave.
I love this. Definitely will be getting a copy for our girls. Our bravest time for sure was our nomadic summer. Leaving everything we knew, spending 2 weeks on the road staying in KOA’s just me and the girls. Sending dad away to school in NYC for 3 months. It was wild but so amazing. I call them adventure girls but brave is different.