How did this become my life? I wondered the other day as I sat in standstill traffic on I-70, listening to NPR and staring at the miles of cars and the western, afternoon sun before me. How did I get here? I mean, how did my life go from flying bush planes in the Alaskan wilderness and teaching English in floating villages in Cambodia… to this? To being a principal, a disciplinarian? The consistent one in my students’ lives? An afternoon traffic NPR listener? How did I end up in this space where my not so fleeting thoughts consist of mortgages and long-term plans to settle into a city when just a little over a year ago I sobbed at the thought of living in America long-term? How did we get here?
One morning last September as I walked into the quiet school hallway, I nearly audibly heard the Lord tell me that my time in the classroom was coming to an end and that I would be moving into administration. I scoffed at the thought and let out a little laugh. An end? But Lord, I’m just now coming back to teaching… (Full disclosure: I scoffed at the thought for other reasons too. The greatest of these being that never, ever, in a million years did I want to become an administrator. Funny how the Lord, works, eh?)
A week or so later, the theme of “rootedness” began popping up in everything I listened to and read, in every quiet time or moment of mediation I took. I noted this theme in my journal and to a few close girlfriends, but brushed it off as a coincidence, or my own confusion– maybe a combination of both. After all, as one of my favorite songs goes,
“I’ve got dreams that keep me up in the dead of night telling me I wasn’t made for the simple life” (NeedtoBreathe, “Happiness”).
I’ve always been a hungry person. I was made for new, for more, for adventure.
I feel nearest to the heart of God when I’m suspended thousands of feet in the air.
I’m energized by the idea of being able to step into change.
Heck, I once stood on my metaphorical soapbox and shouted to the masses that I don’t think I’m a woman created to pay a mortgage.
And yet, here I sit, staring at the afternoon sun day after day on my long commute home from work. With each day’s commute, I’m being pushed into this new, foreign season a bit more. One in which I know the Lord is calling me to be a stable, consistent, loving force for my students at DSS. I’m being called to be(come) a woman who keeps showing up in the hard places of my students’ lives at the Street School day after day, potentially year after year… and for some reason that’s more difficult for me than all of the jet lag, language barriers, transition and culture shock in my recent life experience combined.
Slowly, ohhhhh sooooo slowly, I am learning to be fully present here in Denver, where I’ve been re-planted.
I’m learning to give all of myself to the Lord in a place that really isn’t all that exciting or new. Even more slowly I’m realizing that doing so isn’t any less brave than the days where I was called to don my winter gear and hop into a plane to fly a few villages down and help mitigate domestic violence situations or assist with medical emergencies.
As the brilliant and wise Shauna Niequest says in her book Present Over Perfect,
“Sometimes brave looks more like staying when you want to leave, telling the truth when all you want to do is change the subject.
Sometimes obedience means climbing a mountain. Sometimes obedience means staying home. Sometimes brave looks like building something big and shiny. Sometimes it means dismantling a machine that threatened to overshadow much more important things.
We’re addicted to big and sweeping and photo-ready– crossing oceans, changing it all, starting new things, dreams and visions and challenges, marathons and flights and ascending tall peaks.
But the rush to scramble up onto platforms, to cross oceans, to be heard and seen and known sometimes comes at a cost, and sometimes the most beautiful things we do are invisible, unsexy…
Sometimes being brave is being quiet. Being brave is getting off the drug of performance. For me, being brave is trusting that what my God is asking of me, what my family and community is asking from me, is totally different than what our culture says I should do.
Sometimes, brave looks boring, and that’s totally, absolutely, okay” (p. 125-126).
Amen.
Today bravery in my world looks a lot like this view. Bravery means trusting that I’m meant to sit at this desk and tend to transcripts and curriculum in between shepherding my students (read: “hearding my teenage cats”). 
Bravery means trusting that Jesus truly is sovereign, and that He knew what He was doing when He called me out of my little Alaskan wilderness life and back to Denver on a (semi?) permanent basis, just as much as He knew what He was doing when He took me there. Bravery means trusting Jesus to do the work that seems impossible in my students’ hearts. Bravery means believing the resurrection and praying it over my loved ones when they still see it as folly. Bravery means responding in love when I’m cussed out at work, then cut off in rush hour traffic. Bravery means obedience to God in both place and perspective.
To my stay-at-home-momma friends, world-traveler-missionary friends, big-business-tycoon friends, in-the-trenches-judicial-department friends, full-time-ministry friends, Light-bringing-artist friends, and those of you whose vocation or occupation don’t fall into any of those categories– I beg you to look up, beyond this post.
I’m going to venture to guess that whatever is beyond the screen you’re reading this on is your larger sphere of influence. I simply want to remind you that being there, being a consistent, loving, embodiment of Christ where He put you today is brave. And I applaud you for the ways you are changing the world.
Because in a time where the news headlines are teeming with stories of genocide and mass shootings, the world needs Jesus’ brand of brave Love and Hope– the one which He is working in and through you right where he has planted you for this season.
So press on, brave soul. Brave may feel boring to you today, but even in the mundane, our labors of and for Love are not in vain.
“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain” for death has been swallowed up in victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:58, 54)
Louise in the Light 