The greatest act of courage is to simply keep facing one direction when everything in you wants to turn and run.

Ann Voskamp writes at A Holy Experience about what she learned from some events of the last year: her losing her voice, her son being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and what is happening next week: she is traveling to China where there is a little girl waiting to be adopted into one of the best families I know of.

...every story that you’ve ever lived wraps itself around your DNA. Your stories will express themselves, your stories will manifest themselves —- even if you never whisper a word of your story aloud.

You can think you can wear masks to hide your story from the world —-but maybe the masks we wear are really just a way for us to hide pieces of us from ourselves?

Our stories are always stronger than our masks.

There is no mask in the world that eventually our story won’t bleed through.

...Sometimes you don’t feel God’s smile until after you take a step of obedience into God’s will.

...Certain peace may not come until after you take a certain step of faith. And a step of faith often feels like a step through fear.

...Every time you take a step of faith — there is this fear that you won’t be enough.

...It can feel like if you show anyone your brokenness — it’s your dreams that will get broken.

...the greatest act of courage is to simply keep facing one direction when everything in you wants to turn and run.

...When you’ve got a big enough hope in your heart — you’re willing to risk being told you’re not enough.

...There’s some risks you have got to take because it turns out you can’t live not taking them.

...You can’t expect to keep breathing if you aren’t breathing in hope.

...Even if you don’t feel like enough — you have to risk enough — or you will die without ever having lived enough.Even if you don’t feel like enough — you have to risk enough — or you will die without ever having lived enough.
Even when you’re afraid of not being enough — you’ve got to be more afraid of not having stepped out enough.

Death by living is far preferable to death by being too scared to really live at all.

...You clearly not being enough —- is what makes the enoughness of God most clearly seen.