Being Your Best
A Woman's Guide to Personal Excellence
CHAPTER V - A COURAGEOUS WOMAN
Baby Kyle arrived two months early. Shortly after his birth he stopped breathing. An alert nurse brought him around. During the next week the staff revived him a dozen times. After three months Sharon and Trevor took their son home with the knowledge that there was likely brain damage. Today Kyle goes to school in a wheelchair. Through therapy he’s learning to cope with cerebral palsy.
“You need to have another child for Kyle’s sake,” the doctor told Sharon when Kyle was 4 years old.
“No,” Sharon shook her head. “I would be afraid to risk it happening again.”
“And what if it did?” the doctor replied. “You and Trevor are doing a beautiful job with Kyle. You could handle it. However, the risk is minimal. The chances are one in a million.”
“But it’s that millionth chance I’m afraid of,” said Sharon. “Life is full of risks,” the doctor answered. “Every time you cross the street you take a risk. What if you said, ‘I might get hit by a car, so I won’t cross the street’? You’d never get anywhere. You’ve got to take some risks in life.”
At times I feel a little like Sharon, afraid to venture out into something new, afraid to take a risk. I know I am not alone in my fears. What holds us back from achieving a lifetime dream? What keeps us from boldly stepping out to claim success? Why don’t we have the courage to be all that we can be? Fear holds us back.
What are we afraid of? Embarrassment, pain, and the unknown. We’re afraid of what people might say, or worried about losing a relationship. We’re scared of making a mistake, of failing.
It takes courage to rise above these fears, to walk boldly on in spite of the fear in our hearts; Dorothy Bernard defines courage as “fear that that has said its prayers.” General George Patton suggests that courage is simply “fear holding on a minute longer.” Courage is an act of the will—a choice on our part to go on, to take a risk regardless of our fear.
Every successful woman since time began has been willing to risk failure that she might gain success.
My list of courageous women includes intrepid pioneer missionary Narcissa Whitman and the dauntless Anne Judson. Fearless Mary Slessor of Calabar is there, and so is brave Harriet Tubman. I would include the valiant Elizabeth Fry as well as spunky Florence Nightingale. My list includes stalwart Catherine Booth and the daring Amelia Earhart
These are all women who could have chosen to travel life’s main highway, where they would be comfortable and safe. Instead, they chose to hike a new trail. The path they traveled was uncomfortable at times, risky and unpredictable. Their way was uncertain, uncharted, but the scenery, exciting!
I want to be a woman who travels new trails, a courageous woman such as Ana Stahl or Ida Scudder. I aspire to be a woman who dares to stand up for principles, a woman such as Anne Hutchinson. I want to be a woman unafraid of using her talents, a woman such as Wilma Rudolph or Marian Anderson. I’d like to be a woman able to risk succeeding despite handicaps, a woman such as Joni Eareckson Tada or Carla Mae Salvail.
Twenty-two-year old Carla Mae Salvail has had more than her share of pain. Three years ago her husband of one year died of meningitis. She began working two jobs to earn money to finish her education at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.
After eight months of 24-hour workdays, Carla was exhausted, pushing herself beyond limits in her grief. On the way home from work one night she skidded on a wet bridge, hit a pole, and tore the car in half. Having suffered multiple injuries, she lay in a coma for 28 days.
Today she’s confined to a wheelchair, unable to talk. One hand is useless. With the other she pecks out messages on a laptop computer. She spends two hours a day in physical therapy, doing leg pushes and standing in her walker.
“Walking, I hope, by two years,” she types, smiling. On her desk are university textbooks in political science and psychology. This past term she scored two A-pluses and managed a 3.15 grade point average. Her goal is to be a psychologist for the deaf. She’s teaching herself sign language.
In 1992 Carla won the Terry Fox medal for “someone who has demonstrated those personal qualities of courage in adversity, and dedication to society, which have been exemplified by Terry Fox.”
Courage is demonstrated in many ways. I see it in the face of my friend who is winning in her fight with cancer. I see it in the eyes of another who struggles to carry on after the death of her companion of 40 years. I find it in the forgiveness of a friend whose husband was unfaithful. I see it in the devotion of a woman pastor I know as she obeys God’s call to the ministry in spite of prejudice. I see it in another friend who is trying single-handedly to raise three children and still keep food on the table.
Courage is asking for ginger ale when everyone else is having beer. It is sending a manuscript off to a publisher or giving a public testimony for the first time. It is becoming a refugee for the sake of a child or choosing to give 110 percent to make a marriage work.
Courage is seeking counsel to overcome the abuse of childhood, and sometimes it is walking out of a destructive relationship. It is daring to reach out to neighbors with God’s love, and it is refusing to be a codependent for an alcoholic husband.
Courage is saying no to the good in order to say yes to the best. It is refusing to believe gossip about a friend, and it is confronting someone who has wronged you. It is going back to school after the children have grown up. It is showing kindness to an enemy or daring to be honest with a friend.
It’s easy to say: “Have courage!” But how do you do it? What strategies will help me increase my courage quotient? My study has led me to four practical things I can do.
1. Talk courage. In his book the Psychology of Winning, Dr. Denis Waitley says: “Current research on the effect of words and images on the functions of the body offers amazing evidence of the power that words, spoken at random, can have on body functions monitored on biofeedback equipment. Since thoughts can raise and lower body temperature, secrete hormones, relax muscles and nerve endings, dilate and constrict arteries, and raise and lower pulse rate—it is obvious that we need to control the language we use on ourselves.”
Richard C. Foster confirms this principle in his book Celebration of Discipline: “It is not even important that the person believe what he or she is repeating, only that it be repeated. The inner mind is thus trained and will eventually respond by modifying behavior to conform to the affirmation” (p. 65).
2. Praise God. Vibia Perpetua of Carthage, North Africa, a martyr of the third century, is an example of the power of praise. She was condemned to be thrown into the arena among wild animals and then to be killed by a gladiator’s sword.
Perpetua nurses her infant son until just before her execution. Then she walked to the arena, her face radiant, singing a psalm. She was thrown in with the wild steer.
She was gored by the steer but felt no pain. So terrible was the sight that the crowd roared, “Enough! Enough!” As the animal was led away, Perpetua called for her brother and begged him to remain true to the faith. Then she bravely turned to face the gladiator. When he gave her but a slight wound, she guided his sword to her throat and died, still praising God. What courage!
3. Have faith in God’s promises. My first testing of God’s promise of courage came during my freshman year at Mount Vernon Academy (a Christian high school) when I was faced with my first piano recital. I was terrified of performing in public. During the Sunday afternoon practice my knees shook, my hands trembled, and my mind went blank. I made so many mistakes that I started to cry. “I can’t do it,” I told my teacher. “I’m too scared. I’ll make a fool of myself tonight.“I know that you can do it with God’s help,” she replied. “He’ll give you the courage you need.”
‘I don’t think so,” I whimpered.
“Go to your room and look up Philippians 4:13,” she suggested. “That’s a promise from God to you. Ask Him to keep it. You’ll do fine tonight!”
Back at my room I read, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Courage did come as I asked God for it. I got through the recital without embarrassment.
4. Accept the gift of the Holy Spirit. The influence of the Holy Spirit can bolster our courage in even the most depressing circumstances.Beverly LaHaye knows that this is true. Although a pastor’s wife, she is a fearful, introverted person, afraid to speak in public, anxious about entertaining, worried about what people thought of her and her children.
Then one day at a church retreat she quietly knelt and surrendered her life to God. She said, “Lord, fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Take away my spirit of fear, and give me in its place the spirit ‘of power, of love, and of a sound mind.’ Do the impossible in my life.”
In relating the experience she says: “There was no outward sign of expression except for a beautiful, quiet peace that settled in my heart and the new confidence that God was going to do something far better with my life that I had been able to do” (Beverly LaHaye, The Spirit-Controlled Woman, p.14).
Her husband, Tim LaHaye, testifies, “I have witnessed a sweet, soft-spirited worry machine that was afraid of her own shadow become transformed into a gracious, outgoing, radiant woman whom God has used to inspire thousands of women to accept Him and the abundant life He offers” (ibid. p.8).
I believe that God is just as willing to gift me with courage! By His grace and power I too can become a courageous woman!
Here ends this wonderful and inspiring booklet. Hope you have been encouraged and by God's grace strive to be what He wants you to be. Remember, don't ask God to show you what to do, ask Him to "Lead You."