Courage to Find the You That's Been Hiding

A few weeks ago I spent the evening on my couch watching the ladies final in the World Figure Skating Championships airing live from Boston.

I didn’t even know the competition was on TV until I stumbled across a news story that morning. There was a time when I would have had this date long-circled on my calendar. I might have even traveled to Boston to be there in person. 

But the girl who would have done that was an earlier version of myself and now I’d evolved . . . or transformed or . . . progressed.

{Or had I?}

I’ve loved skating from the time I was five years old and asked my mother to take me to the Ice Capades for my birthday. I’ve taken years of skating lessons and was even brave {or foolish} enough to enter an adult competition.

For three years in a row, I traveled to the US Figure Skating Championships as a spectator, making pilgrimages to Dallas, Atlanta and St. Louis. 

My skating friends and I would buy all-event tickets for the week, arriving at the arena for early morning practice sessions and staying until the competitions wrapped up close to midnight. 

We’d stay at the official hotel, eat breakfast beside skaters and coaches in the dining room, pass them in the lobby, ride with them in elevators, all the while trying not to be dazzled and star-struck.

But a few years ago, I stopped skating. 

My coach moved to another state and I started to think being so devoted to skating was a little frivolous and I should focus on other things. 

Like improving some of my personality quirks and refining some of my rough edges that I thought were getting in the way of the person I should have been becoming.

But that night a few weeks ago when I watched the ladies compete for the gold medal was exciting and beautiful and graceful. 

And I felt a little piece of myself come out of hiding.

Leeana Tankersley has written a striking and profound book called Brazen: The Courage to Find the You That's Been Hiding. 

She writes eloquently and honestly about the journey of becoming who we are in our unique God-created centers with all of our gifts, shortcomings and longings.

This book resonated deeply with my soul. 

Maybe because Leeana renders silent the voices of what she calls the Soul Bullies.

These are the voices out to steal our freedom, question us, instill doubts about what we’re doing and feed our fears. 

She realized that as soon as a creative craving, stirring or a longing wells up, forces are at work to keep her paralyzed, confined and silent.

“Do I believe God put something good inside me on the day of creation that I am to investigate, nurture, return to? Or do I believe the Soul Bullies — that I am a fraud and a fake and a fool for thinking I am entitled to the eternity God set in my heart?”

Leeana noticed that she talked about her desires and longings as if they were dreamy and romantic. 

But instead she discovered that these pursuits needed blood and guts and courage to fight what keeps us from exploring what God plants in our hearts.

Maybe that's why I love skating. It's the part of God-in-me that longs for truth and beauty and love.

I also love art and ballet and writing and history and books and a hundred other things. 

But somewhere along the way I started listening to the voices that told me maybe I shouldn’t like those things so much. 

Maybe if I liked different things, then I’d become somebody new and all the things that weren’t working in my life would fall into place. 

But what didn’t work was trying to hide who I really am.

Four years ago I carved out a little space on the internet and started writing a blog. Although I like stringing together words and creating photos to go with my posts, it's here when I write that I get to know God. 

He reaches down deep into my soul and pulls up words I didn’t even know I had in me. And he shows me who he is.

“Maybe the treasure is knowing who we are and where home is and who is waiting for us there. God looks for us in the quiet of the morning. He sends his love on the wind. 

He calls out to us, ‘Where are you?’ Our whole life is to be the answer, “I’m coming.” - Leanna Tankersley, Brazen

My nephew’s been asking me to watch him play hockey since he started lessons a few months ago. Last weekend I pulled my skate bag out of my closet for the first time in two years and threw it in the car to go to the rink, even though I wasn’t sure I really wanted to skate.

After watching my almost-teenager nephew wield a hockey stick and speed around the ice {for which I’ll take the credit since I introduced him to the skating rink when he was five}, my sister came back to the boards where I was standing. 

“Nate wants to know if his auntie is going to come skate with him,” she asked me.

I rummaged through my skate bag, stuffed my feet in my skates and started lacing them up. Yes, I told her.

“Tell him I’m coming.” 

I'm part of Revell publisher's blogger review tour for Brazen by Leeana Tankersley. I was provided a complimentary copy of the book, but the opinions are completely my own.

I'm having coffee with my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart and with Bonnie Gray at the Faith Barista.