Welcome to Litsy!

This book. This author. 💯💯💯💯
Downs‘ writing is eloquent, rich narrative that hooked me from the start and carried me through to the finish.
Downs now feels like a familiar friend.
While the subject matter may seem blatantly obvious, the book is written and delivered in a way that is fresh and relevant.
Christian Littens who reads the Bible, I highly recommend this be the second book you carry with you for extra motivation and insight.

It‘d be in my best interest to remember and learn to know this as I grow into my purpose at the young age of 28.

God plants dreams in our hearts early. He hands us talents far before we know exactly how to use them.

You need to see that the world is big and diverse and maybe God doesn‘t look or sound the way you always thought He did because the world has a lot of different-looking and different-sounding people, all who are made in His image.

It‘s brave to give your life and your comfort so that others can have life.

The road to courage is lit by God‘s wisdom. His word in the Bible and through the Holy Spirit to you and through others is how you know. You tap into that. You ask for that. You dig into that.

But courage doesn‘t always equal right; courage equals stepping out and trying. Be brave and say yes. But also be brave and say no. Jump on the float. Walk into the furnace. Stand up. Sit down. Get on that flight. Say the thing that courage asks you to say, even if it‘s the word no.

Courageous noes and beautifully brave yeses.🙅🏻‍♀️💯👍🏻

The road is always going to split. There is always going to be another option or another map altogether. There is always going to be a no that may be expensive but right.

Say yes. 💯💯💯

Saying yes changes everything. Walking through the door, agreeing in the moment. Sometimes it‘s just what is needed to show you the next big yes.

This is a very personally convicting passage to me, but also #truthbomb!!💥💯💣

We have to say yes.

Speak love and life into people. 💜

To speak life into someone else takes courage. Whether you are correcting in love, standing up for the voiceless, praying for the sick, or praising and loving others, your words are changing the atmosphere.

Your words matter. The statements you make to others, the ones that get planted in people and cause something new to grow, that require a little more courage? They matter.

Even when you are at your lowest, like I was in that last leg of bootcamp torture, the place where you think no one can help, a kind word can go a long way to heal and go rescue and to help you finish.

If there are seeds of courage living in all of us, waiting to bloom, words are the sun and the water that cheer on those seeds to their fullness.

You know the thing. You know what your call to courage is. As we grow in knowledge and understanding of how God made us, we also get to grow in our understanding of the talents He‘s put in our hands.

Just like every other hobby—panning for gold or mountain biking or baking or book clubbing—you step toward the thing that scares you and you do it and then you look around. Those people standing beside you? They are brave too. They must be to be walking alongside you on the courageous path.

But how to find them—the people who will stand with you and hold up your arms or cover your mouth when you should shut up—seems to be the challenge. The people are easier to identify than you may realize—you just follow your path and look around, because the brave ones? They are the ones parallel to you. They are your people.

Bravery and belonging go hand in hand.

When you know who loves you, you know your safe places. You know where you can rest. You know where you can go when you fail.

I think it‘s really nice when other people remind you that you are loved. It makes you brave.

No one is brave alone. Booyah!

When God tells you to be brave, He will make it work. It won‘t be perfect. It won‘t be easy. But it will be your story and your best story.

Get it? Got it? Good.

The way God sees you. 💜

If we want God to be glorified all over the world, we need to be brave enough to see courage in all its different forms.

You are one of a kind, made on purpose, deeply loved, and called to be courageous.

God believes in you too. He believes in all the ways He made you unique. He believes in all the dreams bubbling in your heart. He believes in your ability to take hold of the tiny ledge that is your next call to courage.

Courage looks different for each of us.

We each just have to be brave in our own ways.

That‘s why we have to believe that God made us each on purpose. If we are each as unique as the Bible says we are, then our calls to courage are each equally unique.

God doesn‘t ask all of us to be foreign missionaries. He asks us to be us.

He knows me. He knows you. He knows we need dreams in pieces because we would be too scared of the whole puzzle. 🧩

To start the journey toward that thing...I don‘t know what it is for you, but it‘s not a journey to courage. The moment you take that first step, the moment you start, little seeds of courage, the ones I believe are already planted there right now, begin to sprout in your heart. You aren‘t headed out to find courage. It‘s in you, it is blooming, and it is with you as you travel and say yes to things that seem scary.

These are lenders, but one of my besties gave them to me as a gift when we were out to lunch today...so I‘ve found my next devotional type reads!! Get ready y‘all. Starting these after I finish the last 100 pages of my current read. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

This is a quick lighthearted read that I am sure would make a world of difference in the lives of someone needing a little nudge to follow their dreams. Annie's writing style is warm & friendly & the book reads like a conversation with a friend over coffee (or tea!). It's bit erratic but in the same way a conversation does with a friend who "gets" you - they move from thought to thought and story to story but all the while holding your attention.

I enjoyed this. I've been reading it in snippets on my kindle app: in the checkout line, waiting for kids to finish school, while kids fall asleep, at the pool etc. It's encouraging and real but I did feel it came into it's own in the last 4 chapters. ⭐⭐⭐