Dear friend,
Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
I quit a job once with no plan after it, just a two weeks notice letter I rewrote four times because I was scared of sounding ungrateful for a place I couldn't stand another year in. My mother in law asked what came next and I said I don't know yet like it was a confession instead of just true.
Starting something new keeps coming up between us, and today I keep thinking about how it always shows up twice, once as excitement and once as this quieter dread that nobody warned you about. I had Joshua 1:9 sitting on me all week. Told to be strong and courageous, which sounds like a poster, until you notice it comes right after being told the road ahead is unfamiliar. The courage isn't for people who already feel steady. It's for people walking into a place they've never been, which was apparently Joshua's exact situation and is apparently yours.
I don't think the dread means you're doing it wrong. I think it means you're paying attention. What part of this new start scares you the most right now?
A prayer
God, she's standing at the edge of something new and it's not simple, excitement and fear tangled together. Steady her tonight. Let her feel Your nearness on unfamiliar ground. Amen.