brave 

adjective

1. possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance.

I’ve never thought of myself as a brave person. Most of my life I have lived in fear – fear of failure, fear of what others thought of me, fear of my past, and fear of the future. Those are just a few things that I’ve been fearful of.

My parents got separated when I was 8 years old and I spent a lot of my childhood working really hard to be a good girl, with good grades and a good reputation. 

That’s good, right? 

It would’ve been, if I had decided to be good for me and not for other people. I wanted to please my mom, who was working two jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies by helping around the house, being a great daughter and a great big sister. I wanted to please my dad – I wanted him to be proud of me and my academic accomplishments. I wanted him to notice how good I was and then maybe he would come back to our family. I wanted to please my grandparents, aunts and uncles, because after my parents got separated they basically raised me. I wanted to do all these good and wonderful things for everyone else and hardly at all for myself. So, my fear of failure began pretty early.

Most of us have lived pretty recklessly at some point in our lives and for me that was from the age of 22 to 25. I made a lot of mistakes and did a lot of really dumb things during that time. I’ve thought back before and wondered if I was too brave during that time in my life but really, all those reckless and dumb things were done out of fear; fear of what others were thinking of me.

At the age of 25 someone taught me that I didn’t need to be afraid – that someone had my back and that I didn’t need to worry about being fearful because He would take care of me.

I gave my life to Jesus Christ at the age of 25 and a lot of things changed for me.

First thing being that I didn’t need to fear my past, because Christ had died on the cross for all the stupid and sinful things I had done, and He wasn’t going to hold them against me.

Second, that I didn’t need to fear my future because He already had all that planned out, too.

Fast forward 4 years and I was on the verge of turning 30 years old, still not married and also no prospect in sight. I once again found myself in fear. Would I ever get married? Did anyone WANT to be married to me? How could I live life alone? Was I gonna be old and alone?

That next year, God was very clear with me about what His plan was. I turned 31 years old in August and was married in October to the most amazing guy in the world who WANTED to be married to me, who was my best friend and WANTED to live his life with me.

In 2015, my husband and I went on a mission trip to Costa Rica. We had to raise money for this trip to happen and money stresses me out! I was so fearful. What if we didn’t raise enough money? What if we failed?

God showed me that I just needed to be brave and step out in faith. When I let my worries go and let Him be in control, all that money was raised and we went to Costa Rica to serve Him and share the Gospel with others.

After that trip, I had some health issues that had a lot to do with my weight. I decided that I couldn’t continue living the way I was, but I was really scared to change a lot of things. What if I couldn’t do all the things that needed to be done? What if I didn’t lose any weight? What if my health got worse?

Then I did a REALLY scary thing – I joined a CROSSFIT gym and at 305lbs, I started doing crossfit. As of today I have lost 50 pounds and don’t plan on stopping there.

With that also came a necessary eating change and so I mostly eat paleo now too. 

Those are probably the bravest things I’ve ever done for myself. Was I scared? A little, but I figured, what did I have to lose except a little weight?

I have trusted God through all these ridiculous WOD’s that our coach programs and have done things that I didn’t think I would ever be able to do like run, jump rope, hang from bars, lift heavy weights, walk up walls, squat, and do wallball shots just to name a few things.

God has also given me an amazing community of people to support me and encourage me and do all those things with me.

brave 

adjective

1. possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance.

When I die, I want people to remember me as being brave. I want people to think back on memories that they have of time spent with me, and see that I had faith and that I believed in something way bigger than myself – a God that made me brave.

~Mrs Galvan~