Lord Make Me Brave

How often do we think to pray that as adults? When our stomach flops with butterflies, when we have to swallow back tears harder than we'd like, when we can't see where we're going past where we're at....Do we remember to ask God for the courage to trust Him and move ahead?

Maybe everyone else reading this does, but I do not. At least I don't as often as I should or as automatically as I should. Usually I skip the prayer part and go right to the figure-it-out-myself part. You'd think I'd learn...and really, I am learning.

I'm learning from this sweet face.

Miss Mouse still loves her swimming lessons, but she's started to face some challenges with them, too. Last week she was to go down the water slide, in a lifejacket, and be caught by her swimming teacher. I stared in surprise as she hesitated at the top and then slowly came out the bottom, using her feet to slow herself slightly.

We talked about it on the way home, and she acknowledged that she was nervous and a bit scared to slide down to her teacher rather than her mommy. Another blogger I read had mentioned a few weeks ago about using the story of Daniel and the lions to illustrate bravery for her own daughters in their swimming lessons, so I went ahead and shamelessly plagiarized her idea since we had just read about Daniel (and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, too - Miss Mouse loves their names!). I explained how Daniel must have been frightened and how the other three must have been scared, but they all prayed to God to help them be courageous and brave and to do what they needed to do. We talked about Miss Mouse being able to pray to be brave, too.

Later that night she told me she had thanked God during her personal bathroom time for making her brave. Hmmm...not the timing I had imagined, but, hey, I'm just going to focus on the fact she's praying.

Today Miss Mouse was encouraged to jump in to her teacher - which she has done before, but this was a different teacher since her usual was on vacation - and Miss Mouse was fairly adamant that the teacher needed to catch her. I often don't catch her anymore, so I knew she was feeling nervous again as the other parents and I all watched our kiddos and chatted.

On our way home today, I asked Miss Mouse if she had felt nervous again. She acknowledged that she had, and then she added: "But I prayed to God before I jumped in that He would make me brave, and He told me 'Go ahead and jump in. It's okay. I can always see you'."

Even her Daddy was a bit taken aback tonight when he heard that from her mouth. So often I get bogged down by all we need to get done in the day and start thinking that *I* am the teacher in the threesome of women in our family. Then my sweet four-year-old hears God tell her He can always see her, and that reassures her enough to face her fears.....And I'm humbled and remember, yet again, that I seem to be learning far more than I'm teaching these Mice.

"I can always see you". What a comforting thought if we'd really let it sink in the same way a four-year-old can.