courage Archives - Gina Brenna Butz

Vulnerability on Display

Post author:Gina B
Post published:December 5, 2019
Post category:courage identity

A common response I get after a public speaking engagement is, “I so appreciate your vulnerability when you speak.”

I don’t want to contradict them at the moment, so I don’t, but the truth is, I’m generally not vulnerable when I speak.

I’m transparent.

There’s a big difference.

For a long time, I thought I was being vulnerable by sharing personal stories, particularly stories of things I’ve struggled with, in front of others.

But I generally share in the past tense. Like, “here’s something I used to struggle with” or “let me tell you about a time I failed and how God used it.”

That’s not vulnerability. It’s transparency.

Vulnerability vs Transparency

Here’s the difference:

As my friend Iris puts it well, transparency is putting your junk in a window on display for others to see. Yes, it might be awkward, but you get to choose what they see and what they don’t.

You can choose that which has healed over, or is healing over. You can choose that which no longer evokes shame (if it ever did). What others see is completely within your control.

Vulnerability is inviting people into the back room to see what’s still tender. Back there lie the things that do trigger shame. The wounds that are still open. That which you may fear bringing into the light. Sometimes things you don’t even realize are there.

Transparency is letting people see the scars. Vulnerability is letting people close enough that they might touch the wounds. Share on X

Being transparent is good-we need people to see how we are growing, how we have grown. It invites them to do the same. When God brings us through something difficult and we share it with others, it ministers to them.

Not everyone has earned the right to come into the back room to see what is deepest in us. We aren’t meant to show all that to the world. So no, I’m not particularly vulnerable when I speak, by intention. Vulnerability is meant for safe spaces and safe people.

Choosing Vulnerability and Transparency

But that doesn’t mean we get a pass on sharing vulnerably with others. We’re all called to go beyond transparency with some people, or at least someone. We need God’s wisdom and guidance (and a good bit of courage) to know who our safe people are. And when we figure out who they are, we need to bravely invite them into those back room places.

Chances are, some of the stories that we are transparent about now were once things that felt very vulnerable. Because we shared them with safe people first, they can be brought to a place where we share them with others. Healing has happened. The more we choose vulnerability, the more we are able to be transparent about the wounds that have healed.

There’s a place for transparency. And there’s a place for vulnerability. Not everyone has earned the right to see all of us, but everyone needs to see some of it.

Speak Your Dream Out Loud

Post author:Gina B
Post published:January 3, 2019
Post category:expectations hope personal perspective

Accountability is a beast, isn’t it? I once trained for a 10K, but I didn’t tell anyone except my husband. The morning of, I thought, “No one knows I signed up. If I don’t go (and my body was telling me that was a good idea) no one would know.”

But I went. And I ran a pretty good time.

When you speak your dreams and goals out loud, then it all matters, doesn’t it? And that’s exactly why we should do it.

When I Learned to Speak My Dream

For the last six years, a dream stirred in me. I wanted to write a book. The first couple of years, I wrote by myself in Panera and the public library and Starbucks. Once, a stranger asked me what I was doing. I told him, “I’m a writer.” He was incredibly impressed, and I felt like a complete fraud.

I don’t remember when I first told someone, “I’m writing a book.” I do remember that as the years passed, and the book still wasn’t finished, and then it wasn’t published, I grew sheepish. Ashamed that I had told anyone I was attempting this. Because accountability.

I should have kept my mouth shut, right? But no. I’m glad I didn’t. Because when we put our dreams out there, they become a little more real. And others rally around us. Or not. But that’s irrelevant. Because we are meant to speak our dreams out loud.

Why We Should Speak

Because this is what I know: when something good stirs in us, it’s from God. It’s not just a pipe dream-it’s the whisper of a calling. It might be more than just an idea; it might be the very thing you’re called to do.

And when we say it out loud, we honor what He puts in us. It makes us a little braver, or at the very least, slightly less willing to set it aside. And maybe that in itself is bravery.

Speaking our dreams awakens hope. It opens our hearts. It makes us stand a little taller, try a little harder, look a little further.

Maybe the dream won’t come true. Maybe God will transform it into something else. Something better, even. His ways are even higher than ours, so why not start with speaking the dreams He’s given us? It’s the only way to move toward seeing the bigger things He has in store.

Hope is scary. But so is letting it die. People keep asking me what I’m looking forward to in 2019. When I say, “My book getting published” it feels like a surreal, delightful dream come true.

I’m so glad I never gave up. And I’m so glad for those who heard my dream and wouldn’t let me forget it.

It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t spoken it out loud and invited others to encourage my dream.

My Challenge to You

So dream big this year, friends. Speak your dreams out loud. Anything from, “I’m going to run a marathon,” to, “I’m going to love better,” to, “I’m going to reach my neighborhood.”

What goals do you have as you begin this new year? What dream is stirring in you? Will you be brave to say it out loud?

Ask God to awaken something in you. Speak it out. Then see what happens.

The Secret to Persevering in the Arena

Post author:Gina B
Post published:November 9, 2017
Post category:courage dependence on God faith trials

Developing a Stronger Theology for the Arena — Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash

Recently I had a week of awkward engagements, mostly in the form of writing emails telling people what they don’t want to hear, or pushing into uncomfortable topics with others.

Yuck. I thought, “Is there a hole I can go crawl into now?” But each of those interactions was necessary because of the tough arenas of life God has called me into for this season.

Brene Brown, in her book Rising Strong, says, “an arena is any moment when or place where we have risked showing up and being seen.”

Inspired by the Teddy Roosevelt 1910 speech (below), those arenas are places of blood, sweat, and tears, where we fight for what we believe in. We hope for victory, but know that failing is always a possibility.

This is a “venture into tough new arenas” year for me. They ask more of me than I want to give sometimes. These arenas call me to risk, lead, take stands, and put myself out there.

Can I be honest? Making a difference, affecting change, living bravely, all sounds great in theory. But it’s tiring.

A lot of the time, I want to quit. Stop writing. Step away from leading. Let things go rather than fight for a stance. Comfort is more appealing than potential failure, regardless of what I or others might gain.

It’s hard to put yourself out there when there’s a risk of falling on your face. So much more appealing to stay on those safe shores. And yet, we must keep fighting.

When I am tempted to step out of the arena, wipe the blood, sweat, and tears off my face, and throw in the towel, I feel a check in my spirit. A voice says,

“Stay. Stay and fight. You don’t need to stop. You just need more truth for this.”

We don’t need to quit.

We just need to get stronger. And where does that strength come from? It comes from the truth. Here’s the secret to not quitting when life is tough:

We need a stronger theology for the arena.

What does that look like? To begin with, it means more strength training out of the ring.

We train our minds with the truth; that this is for His glory, not our ours; that there is no failure so great to put us out of His reach; that every second in the ring is only possible because of His power, not our own; that a knockdown does not define our worth.

The more we are called to the arena, the more we need to feed our minds and hearts the truth about who He is and who we are. Then, when we are tempted to quit, instead we choose to double down on those truths.

Second, we need to train our hearts to hear our coach’s voice, even in the thick of the fight. He is with us, for us, in us. No one is more for us in the arena than He is.

We can’t always step out of the ring, so we must learn the moment by moment Yahweh breathing to slow our hearts and call us back to depend on His voice.

Staying in the arena means growing the humility to admit when we need a minute in the corner to catch our breath. We take time in the corner to get toweled off and refreshed by His Presence, His Spirit, His words. The longer we’re there, the harder it is, but there’s always a place of rest.

It’s hard to win without anyone in your corner. We need cheerleaders, people who know why we’re in there and believe in what we’re doing. Those are the people who will shout at us to get back up when we fall.

And we need to remember why we stepped into the arena in the first place. If this is God’s call, He gives us what we need to fight.

He never promised easy. Nor did He promise victory in every battle. But if we strengthen our theology, we can stay in it until it’s finished, no matter how many times we fall.

Moana and the Power of Grit

Post author:Gina B
Post published:April 6, 2017
Post category:courage trials

If there’s one thing I hope to say about myself by the end of this year, it’s this: I’m grittier than I was.

When I say grit, I’m talking about courage and resolve, showing up and staying in it for the long haul, doing the hard things that get you places you thought you couldn’t go.

I’ve learned, in the last year, that I am not a naturally gritty person. I like safety and comfort. I like staying in known places where I’m doing well.

The problem is, not much happens in those safe, comfortable places.

You know who has grit? Moana. I’m in love with this character from Disney because she is a great picture of the rewards of being gritty.

Moana lives on an island, where she is destined to be the next leader. Their island is slowing dying, food is scarce. The people are getting desperate.

Moana suggests they go beyond the reef to look for more fish, but her father tells her, “There’s nothing beyond our reef but storms and rough seas. As long as we stay on our very safe island, we’ll be fine.” He tried to go beyond the reef before and found nothing but heartache and an unforgiving ocean.

Moana tries to stay as her father asks, but the desire to save her people, and the call on her life to be the one to help them compels her to go.

Throughout the movie, we see her waver between doubt and courage, resolve and giving up. In the end, (spoiler alert) her perseverance pays off.

We all have a safe island where we could stay.

And we all have ways God is calling us to live out who we are, asking us to venture into new waters. He calls us to places that test our resolve, places of potential failure, but also great reward.

For me, writing has been that call onto the water. It’s been a challenging and anxiety-ridden ride at times, full of temptation to compare myself to others, wonder if I have what it takes, and be discouraged.

I have tried to be courageous and put myself out there, but often I have wanted to give up and walk away, back to my safe island. To be honest, I feel that right now, today, as I write this.

When we attempt to do something that calls us beyond our comfort zone, it’s tough. We get tired. There’s heartache and failure. Sometimes it feels like the world is against us. Our dreams seem just out of reach. We doubt it’s worth it.

The question is, “Will we keep going?”

It takes grit. Leaving the island takes grit. Staying the course takes grit.

But what’s the alternative? If we stay, our worlds get smaller, until we are stuck on our islands. We are safe, but we aren’t living. Comfortable, but accomplishing little. We miss the call.

So what does it take for us to leave the island, to stay gritty?

In my experience, it’s a combination of being desperate enough to leave where we are, and a clear vision of where we want to be.

It’s the conviction that where we are is not where we want to be in the end, and where we would like to land is worth the risk and the effort. That’s where we stay laser-focused whenever we are ready to throw in the towel.

It’s also the conviction that this is what God has asked us to do. And if He has asked us to do it, He will equip us for it. He doesn’t promise it will be easy, but He promises He will be with us. Grit takes faith, in ourselves, yes, but even more so in the One who called us.

I don’t know what God is calling you to right now. Maybe it’s starting that ministry that’s been gnawing at your heart. Is there a relationship God calls you to fight for when you want to leave? Maybe it’s that book you’ve always wanted to write, or the job you’re not sure you’re qualified for. It might be literally leaving this land and venturing across the sea to a new place. Whatever it is, it’s worth the risk.

Stop staring at the edge of the water. Go. Stay the course. Be gritty.

He Makes Me Brave

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 28, 2016
Post category:courage faith

I recently started a new role in our ministry, and I find myself again in uncomfortable places.

They’re uncomfortable because they are unfamiliar. I’m being introduced to people I don’t know as someone who has something to offer. I don’t know how they will respond to my ideas, my actions, if they want what I have to give.

They’re uncomfortable places because I’m scared. I might fail. I might ask questions that reveal my ignorance. I might get in over my head.

They’re uncomfortable because I don’t always know what to do, because people outside of my family are relying on me for work and that hasn’t happened for a long time.

It all requires me to be braver than I am.

I have this idea that being brave means having no fear, but I know that’s not true. It means walking into those uncomfortable places despite the fear.

Brave is showing up. Brave is trying, even if you might fail. Brave is offering what you have, whether or not you know it’s what someone wants. Brave is uncomfortable.

I so wish it weren’t. I wish I could jump to the place where I feel like I know what I’m doing, and I am confident that I add value by what I do. But there is no growth without being brave, and there is no brave without discomfort.

Thankfully, I don’t have to do brave on my own. God is the one who calls me to give what I have in uncomfortable places. He makes me brave.

He is the one who goes before me, who sustains me, who catches me when I fall. Because of Him, the uncomfortable places become places where His glory shines, where I become less and He becomes more.

“It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You make your saving help my shield; your help has made me great.” (2 Samuel 22:33-36)

Do It Scared

Just Show Up

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 12, 2015
Post category:courage grace trials

It’s Monday, y’all, and I for one am not into it. I’m staring down another week of busy, after a full weekend of uff da.

Today, it’s enough for me to show up. Still in my pajamas, I’m sure at least until noon, but I’m here. Gina, reporting for life.

But today I agree with Brené Brown that it can be brave just to show up. Just come and say, “I’m here.”

I may not be ready or have what it takes, but I’m here. I’ll do it scared if I have to.

Maybe it won’t be amazing. But what is there for me to do, I will do faithfully. And that is enough.

Our sweet girl showed up last weekend. She spent most of it trying out for a competitive soccer development program. Right out of the gate, the wind got knocked out of her sails by a shaming comment from one of the coaches after she missed an easy shot. It rattled her, threw her day off.

She came home in tears, full of frustration and regret. But I was so proud. She stayed. She did it scared. Maybe not her best effort, but she showed up. That’s important. That’s brave.

Even more brave to go back the next day and do it all over again.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'”

She did.

As I saw my husband off to another tough work day, he looked at me and said, “I’m showing up.” Yep. That’s enough.

This fall has been a series of showing up days for me. Days that feel like they ask more than I have (am I the only one who feels like raising teenagers requires a counseling degree they don’t have?).

But I keep showing up. Gina, reporting for life.

Some days, I feel successful. Like a rock star.

Some days, I feel like I’m fresh out of amazing, as my friend and fellow blogger Stacey puts it so well in her book. Grace for the rest.

Faithful isn’t about how well you do it – it’s about doing it, period. It’s showing up, again and again.

I keep showing up because I know He uses what I bring. He takes my offerings and fills in the empty spaces with grace. We can show up because we know He goes before. We are not alone.

Do it scared, tired, empty, lonely, weak, clueless. We show up with confidence because He uses it all.

So let’s show up today.

Let’s bring our best, whatever that looks like on any given day, and know that it’s enough because He has the rest. This can be our act of courage today, our brave face regardless of the circumstances.

Stop Telling Me to Be Amazing

Two Battles

Post author:Gina B
Post published:April 17, 2014
Post category:faith

Two Battles – from Thailand, January 20, 2012

I’ve been trying to think of how to share what we’ve been doing this week here in Thailand (aside from trying not to get sunburned, reading Kindles by the pool, and searching in vain for Coke Zero). We’re at a conference called re-LEAF (Leadership Evaluation and Formation). It’s a time to revisit the process that God started when we all went through this conference the first time.

So how do I summarize what it is we talk about here? I thought this excerpt from The Magnificent Defeat, by Frederick Beuchner might do it. He’s talking about “The Two Battles” Forgive me if it’s a little long – I cut a lot out!:

“The first is a war of conquest . . . All our lives we fight for a place in the sun . . . we feel that we must conquer a territory in time and space that will be ours. And that is true. We must.

“What is the armor to wear in such a war? Not, certainly, the whole armor of God here but, rather the whole armor of man, because this is a man’s war against other men. In such a war, perhaps, you wear something like this: Gird your loin with wisdom . . . put on the breastplate of self-confidence . . . let your feet be shod with the gospel of success . . . above all take the shield of security . . . and the helmet of attractiveness or personality or the sword of wit.

“The other war is not the war to conquer but the war to become whole and at peace inside our skins . . . it is the war to become a human being. This is the goal we are really after and that God is really after. This is the goal that power, success, and security are only forlorn substitutes for.

“(What we must be set free from is) the darkness in ourselves that we never fully see or fully understand or feel fully responsible for, although Heaven knows we are more than a little responsible. (Paul identifies it as,) ‘I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.’ . . . The evil in ourselves as individuals is greater than the evil that we choose, and that is great enough. This is the darkness which we need to be liberated from in order to become human.

“It is for this war, not the other one, that we need the whole armor of God . . . He is the truth about who man really is, about what it means to be really human, and about who God really is . . . In the great war of liberation, it is imperative to keep in touch always with the only one who can liberate.

“Even if we do not find our place in the sun, or not quite the place we want, or a place where the sun is not as bright as we always dreamed that it would be, this is not the end because this is not really the decisive war even though we spend so much of our lives assuming that it is. The decisive war is the other one – to become fully human, which means to become compassionate, honest, brave . . . (this) is the war which every man can win who wills to win because it is the war which God also wills us to win and will arm us to win if only we will accept His armor.”

So I guess we are talking about the battles in our ourselves, and where we are putting our energy – are we still putting it into fighting the first battle? Or are we learning more and more to trust in God and His armor to become who we were really meant to be in Him?

What about you? Which battle are you fighting?

Do It Scared

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 6, 2014
Post category:anxiety courage

So I have this ambition to write a book about transition. I’m good at ambition – I’m ambitious about a lot of things. But most of those things are within my grasp, private, typical. Or if they aren’t, no one knows about them anyway, so they don’t know that I failed.

In this, success or failure is not something I can call. It’s something others will call. Let me tell you: that terrifies me.

So I find excuses not to write. The house is dirty. I’m tired. I don’t have enough time to really get into it right now. I need to do this project for work instead. I should write a blog post (ahem).

Why? I’m afraid that when I sit down, nothing will come. Or I’ll look at it and say, “What on earth am I even trying to say here? This doesn’t make sense!” Or I won’t have enough material. Or maybe, after all my hard work, it will still fail.

I think I keep hoping that it will magically write itself. I’m discovering that my voice recorder on my phone is my best writing friend – this book might just be written in 30 second sound bites that hit me on the 417 or in the last waking moments of the day. Still, somehow those thoughts need to get organized and put down on actual paper, and that is what I have on my plan this morning.

Which brings me back to scared. But I’ve decided that my motto right now is “do it scared.” Stop waiting to feel confident or motivated or full of ideas or like you aren’t terrified to make this dream a reality. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s doing it despite the fear.

What are you doing scared today?

Courage

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 24, 2013
Post category:31 Days of Victory

I knew a guy once whose dad was the king of getting good deals out of retailers. He even got a salesman in a store to give him the tie he was wearing. I do not have that kind of mojo.

I don’t even have a little of it. In fact, having to try to ask for a deal or have someone go out of their way for me in a store is dreadful. Full o’ dread. You say I can get a discount if I ask? Fat chance. I’m just going to hope they offer it. They didn’t do a good job and I should ask them to do it again? I’ll get over it.

So I’ve been putting off a task that involves this unpalatable activity. I had a ring resized a few weeks ago, and it’s been taking skin with it each time I try to get it off. Some friends encouraged me to take it back and have him do it again, and to not charge me. Oy.

But, long story slightly shorter, I did it. He was actually quite gracious about it and did it immediately. See, Gina, now was that so hard? Victory over my silly self!

What are you calling victory today?

Progress

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 11, 2013
Post category:31 Days of Victory transition

I went on a school field trip today. This is the second trip I’ve attended with my daughter’s class. The first one inspired this post about feeling weird. Not one of my finer days.

Today’s victory, when looking back on that first field trip, is progress. Transition progress, that is. That first day, standing in the group of moms who were also learning about the early settlers of Florida and their fort building ways, I wanted to crawl in a hole with my weird stories about my former life. Some of the moms kindly introduced themselves to me. Some of them looked at me like maybe I was lost. I was, just not in the way they thought. I had no excess relational energy to squander on filling them in as to who I was.

I have not become an extrovert in the interim, but I can say that it was the easiest thing today to hang with the other moms. Some of them I was seeing for the second time, the first being the previous trip where we said not two words to one another. I rectified that. I even threw in a few weird China stories – hey, they’re part of the package. It was fun.

It’s encouraging to feel like my heart has simmered down enough where I can step out of my comfort zone and actually walk away energized by it. Definitely doing the victory dance today.

What are you calling victory?

Vulnerability on Display

Vulnerability vs Transparency

Choosing Vulnerability and Transparency

Related posts:

Speak Your Dream Out Loud

When I Learned to Speak My Dream

Why We Should Speak

My Challenge to You

The Secret to Persevering in the Arena

We need a stronger theology for the arena.

Related posts:

Moana and the Power of Grit

We all have a safe island where we could stay.

So what does it take for us to leave the island, to stay gritty?

He Makes Me Brave

Just Show Up

Two Battles

Do It Scared

Courage

Progress