Evi Wusk

“My low,” she says reviewing the day, “was when we were in the car wash.  I was scared.”

I nod and remember her three-year-old body, scrunched in her car seat, her fists clutching the sides of her head like ear muffs as I twisted around the driver’s seat to put my hand on her leg.  The whirring soapy bristles descended to our car in the darkness as I assured her, “It’s just the brushes that clean up our car and make it all shiny, honey.”

I lay beside her later the same day during our bedtime ritual, her little face free of clenched fists, her features mirroring mine with the pillow lining her lamp-lit cheek.  Each night after books and what feels like hostage negotiations–for water and milk and more stories and different socks and going potty even though we didn’t have to go before–we share highs and lows.

“So, what do you do when you’re scared like that?” I asked.

“Well,” she says, “like when I think there’s a bear or a witch?” (I nodded) “You pray to God or your grandma or your mom or your dad.  Or I hide.  Or I sing a song. . . Or I just be brave.”

And maybe, I think. . . breathing in her tiny person wisdom. . . it is just that simple.  Maybe I just be brave.  Maybe we all just be brave.

What if all those things that scare us are “just the brushes that clean up our car and make it all shiny”?

What if those fear things, those challenge things, those I-wish-this-would-just-get-outta-my-life things are in some way refining us?

I have been blogging here sporadically for three years today.  Happy anniversary Gratitude Gal.  Even after these years of practice, I write posts and get too scared to hit publish.  The “bears and witches” of my blogging hobby stop me short.

I want to put myself on notice to just be brave with my words.  My goal this year is to hit publish more often, whether I feel ready, courageous, both or neither.  My hope is that it might be just that simple.

“But when I am afraid, I put my trust in you.  I praise God for what he has promised.  I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?” – Psalm 56:3-4a