South Africa has been an incredible journey so far. My team and I have been apart of some great projects here with our ministry partners and have been able to experience a ton of new things as well as develop a deep bond with each other.
But that is not what this blog post is about. This post is about something that God has been working on in me recently: being fierce hearted. I have been reading the book “Fierce Hearted” by Holley Gerth about how to be a fierce woman of the Lord. But I think the information within those pages can be applied to anyone’s life, not just women.
“God is a storyteller. He’s a mad scientist and a father and a magician, and certainly, he’s a storyteller. And I don’t know if there’s anything better in the world than when we lay ourselves wide open and let his story become our story, when we screw up our fists and our courage and start to tell the truest, best stories we know, which are always God’s stories.” -Shauna Niequist
So what does it mean to be fierce hearted. Honestly that’s something I am still figuring out today and will probably be figuring and working out for a while. If you’re anything like me, you so desperately want people to see you as a strong individual. Someone who can handle themselves in any situation, who doesn’t need anyone’s help, who can do everything and anything they put their mind to. But in reality, that’s not what being fierce hearted means.
Being fierce hearted means being humble enough to admit when you need help. Being fierce hearted means to not live your life isolated from others. Being fierce hearted means willing to be vulnerable. Being fierce hearted means admitting that you are imperfect. Being fierce hearted means being grateful for what you have and serving others in the process.
To be fierce hearted you must believe in yourself. To believe in yourself means to believe that God made you and there is no one like you, that you have a unique call to courage, and that you can do the thing that is staring you in the face. God has made you this way on purpose. Your way of being was not a defect, a weakness, or something you just have to learn to work around. It is, instead, a strength. You have to learn to accept and welcome your own true self. Your bravery will allow others to walk in courage.
Live good stories, be a good story. Being fierce hearted doesn’t mean you aren’t scared, it just means you keep fighting for hope and praying for miracles. Being fierce hearted means choosing to love others and to love yourself. The fiercest love I know is that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. He is the greatest example of how to be fierce hearted.
So maybe, just like me, you want to work your way to being a fierce hearted individual. It’s going to be a daily walk and one I am personally trying to seek out and understand. But I know that I cannot do this life alone. I need community and I need the Lord. In reality these are all just words I took from a page. It’s up to each of us to choose what resonates with us and how we are going to act upon it. I want to leave you with a quote from the book below that really stood out to me and encompassed everything I’ve read and said so far…
A fierce hearted woman…
looks life in the face and says, ” You can’t beat me.”
Knows love is risk but reaches out anyway.
Understands kindness takes real courage.
BELIEVES THE IMPOSSIBLE.
Fights like she’s unstoppable.
Dares to find beauty in a ragged souls.
Scandalously picks warm over cool.
Tastes life as a brief, salty-sweet miracle.
Skins her knees, has scars that bear witness.
Defends like a warrior and weeps like a girl.
Makes gentle the new strong, small the new big,
ordinary the new extraordinary.
Sees wrinkles on a face as lines in a victory story.
NEVER GIVES IN, NEVER GIVES UP, NEVER LETS GO.
Chases Jesus with a tender, world-changing wildness.
Lives in your neighborhood or not even on your continent.
Looked back at you from the mirror this morning…
and has yet to fully see the force her star-scattering,
mountain-moving, water-walking God created her TO BE.
