I’ve just realized this is a holiday.  Martin Luther King Day.  May it be a blessed one for all.

Holiday’s usually give us a time to relax, sit back and change our focus.  Not for me.  I look forward to ‘holiday’s’ as a time when I can get all the things I don’t normally get done on ‘work’ days. 

Today I’m working diligently to wrap up all the things I need to take with me to the Atlanta women’s conference.  These opportunities are all too rare these days and I want to make certain I take advantage of every door that opens while I’m there.  One thing is sure - I get to meet with a few of our AWP members from the Atlanta area.

I want to say a few things about my role in the Atlanta “Lydia Conference”.  I am blessed with the opportunity to be part of a panel that closes the conference on Thursday.  It came about (in the natural as we say) through an AWP member who is part of the planning committee.  Last week she mailed me the 2 questions I’ll be asked as part of my intro remarks.  It’s the first question that I want to address.

“You’ve shared with me that you’re an entrepreneur at heart, and what impresses me most is your enthusiasm and willingness to venture into new creative endeavors and yet, at the same time, help others get ahead.  Doing that requires a foundation of security.  What’s your secret for fearlessness?”

I’ve been thinking about my response for days!  Because how I answer may have an effect on all the women who hear it.  So I’m trying it out here.

 First, I don’t consider myself to be “fearless”.  Fear in any new endeavor, change, transition - whatever life brings or we create for ourselves - involves an element of human fear!  I hear it all the time from women who are at a crossroads in life or against the wall in what appears to be an impossible situation.

There’s no way we can distance ourselves from fear.  It’s part of our human condition and a viable emotion that protects us in dangerous times and causes us to take actions we might never take otherwise.

However, it can be the one thing that prevents us from achieving our God-given purpose.  It has the potential to override our passion for moving beyond the ’status quo’.  It’s all the “what ifs” that crowd out the “wow, why not”!

Beginning from that position is our healthiest response to ‘taking the bull by the horns’ and moving into the ‘leap of faith’ that change requires.  I don’t know anyone who has answered the Call to move on down the road who has not done so with human fear as their traveling companion.

So what is it that we need to draw on?  What’s the word we need to replace “fearlessness” with “faith” (and I’m sure that’s the answer I’m expected to come up with)?

 For me, that word is courage.  Courage is what it takes to put in our Essential Business Tool Bag for life!  I don’t know about you, but I believe that courage is also built into us, as is “faith the size of a grain of mustard seed”.  When the two of them meet (courage and the mustard seed), we can overcome any obstacle that presents itself - with the support and encouragement of others! 

Even fear!  Because fear in the sense of which we are speaking is usually a phantom.  It’s based on a personal history that wants to whisper things such as “what if you fail?”; “oh, that won’t work”; “I don’t have what it takes”.  Lies that have been set in motion from birth and heaped upon as life dealt us some pretty ’stinky’ moments.

The antidote to all this is courage combined with a mustard seed of faith that no matter what, something positive and significant will come of this venture upon which I am about to embark.

Courage doesn’t destroy fear.  It neutralizes it.  It recognizes that its on for the ride, but pays it no mind.  Even when the road gets a little bumpy!

I don’t think it matters what challenge we face at anytime in our lives.  Even when we know we’ve entered the 2nd half of the journey because we’ve been convinced it comes with chronological age or by life circumstances.  There are at least two key things we need to get us through:  (1) to recognize that as a human being, we will have to deal with fear and say it out loud to ourselves if necessary.  Then be at peace with the fact that it will accompany us no matter where we go because that’s simply the way it is; and (2) I can live with “it” in my carry-on when there are others who love and support me and call forth courage and the mustard seed by standing solidly with me at all times. 

I think the greatest words we can hear as we journey through life - yes even the 2nd half of it - are “You can do it!”  Remember how we said those words to our babes as they struggled to let go of the coffee table and take those wonderful first steps alone?  We’re never far from the coffee table. 

And hopefully there is always someone sitting near who continues to say, “You Can Do It!”

That my dear sisters, is one of life’s greatest blessings.

Have an awesome day with much love and rich blessings indeed!

Linda