Brave Girl,

As we move forward  from being ankle-deep into knee-deep book writing water I want to challenge your thinking.  Challenge you on the way you live and love.

Our ears are filled with “find balance”  “are you setting margins in your life?”  and my current favorite “less hustle more love.”   Which are all true and equally all hard to do as women.

My challenge today isn’t about changing how you fill your days.

It’s a question that we can ponder and answer honestly or we can hurriedly brush past with an answer  “of course”…

“Do you have God Space in your goals, dreams and the way you live and love? ” 

This is a lesson I keep learning.    You’d think as much as I’ve seen God work through my personal life, CGgirls and my tribe, this should be second nature to me.

When I felt God nudging us to expand the platform of  Brave Girl Boots to include a published devotional, I immediately went into strategic leader mode.

If you are wired for leadership you get that.  You can’t help yourself.

A vision for a published book + no provision =   Time to Plan.

Nothin’ wrong with planning,  nothin’ wrong with putting some action to your faith, no ma’am …that’s all good. 

Except I initially didn’t leave God Space in my plan.    We came up with the idea to sell shirts and set an obtainable goal.

(Ding! Ding! Ding!  First clue you aren’t leaving God Space in your plan is if you know how to pull it off without Him).

We needed the revenue of selling 200 BGB shirts but I knew we could sell 50 (mom, aunts, friends, Pastor’s wife…)  — I know LAME!  Totally lame!   What kinda visionary am I?

As I started to move forward confidently with our goal of 50, I felt that familiar nudge.   You know the one.  Yep.

Conversation flowed like this, “Have you left room for me to work?”  BOOM!   “No, God I haven’t. ”   whispers the woman who absolutely knows better.

Seriously, Brave Girl,  sometimes I am pathetic.  

We moved forward with the goal of 200 shirts.   The fundraising campaign was wildly successful.

We ended up $200 short in our funding;  however on the day we called to seal the deal with the publisher a sale was running.   Wait for it…$200 off !  Paid in full!

I laugh at this now, because really I could cry if I let myself.

Had we not trusted God by making God Space for him in our plan, we would have missed out on this provisional blessing,

not to mention spinning our wheels to raise more funds.   We would have settled for a quarter of what God could do.

I’m tired of settling for what I can do.  What about you?

God Space.  

Are you leaving room for Him in your dreams, your plans, your family, your relationships?

Or do you have it all tucked in your grip.  Closed. Controlled.

Brave Girl, that ain’t no way to live.   What we’re left with is what we can make happen and guess what ?   We get short-changed, every time.

What has your heart’s attention today?   Is it a wayward loved one?  A dream that needs to be dusted off and followed?  The physical estate of someone you dearly love? Is it your marriage or lack of one?
What about that hard to love person He keeps bringing in your path to love well?

Today is a day of exchange.   The burden of self-sufficiency, worry, fearfulness for God Space.

God isn’t afraid to get His hands dirty in your mess.   He gets personal, His hands eagerly ready to transform us from mounds of nothing to what He desires for us.   Christ-likeness.

But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.  (ESV)  Isaiah 64:8