“There’s a limit to how brave I can be.” That’s what I muttered to myself (and to God) under my breath this morning, hands in pockets walking back up my driveway. But as soon I I heard my own words, I stopped short. Cocked my head and wrinkled my nose. “No. . . wait. Really, son?” Somehow I knew there was something wrong with the statement. I just couldn’t immediately decide what. . . I did figure it out though. I don’t know what limits your “brave.” But I have come to the conclusion that there are only two things that limit mine— 1. My personal threshold for discomfort. 2. My perception of the limits on God’s power. If I’m short on bravery, it will be because I’m lacking one, or the other, or both. What are yours? Turns out, hard things (good hard things) are worth a bit of discomfort. Bad ones are worth getting through, which also requires some discomfort. And all things, good and bad (if I read my Bible right) are dwarfed by God’s capacity. Today, I’m gonna stretch myself a bit past my comfort zone, and lean hard, and rejoice.

I have my own definition. . . I’m super curious to hear yours. To me, it boils down to this: Love, Joy, and Peace, Regardless. Which, importantly, doesn’t mean nothing goes wrong. . . - It just means _when wronged,_ we can choose love anyway. - And when it’s dark, we can still have joy. - And when everything is flying to pieces. . . Still peace. Which is all-out crazy, if you stop and think about it. And it’s my favorite flavor of invincible.

True story: My wife just appeared in the doorway of my office (which currently occupies one corner of the back room of the tiny off-grid cabin we call home) and declared of a certainty (and with some emphasis) that she's never falling for "it" again. . . Where by "it," she meant the idea that problems can be fixed by pills. Even natural/herbal ones. I'll back up a step. Symptoms come in cycles, right? One of our girls has been dealing with a significant spike of sensitivity, accompanied by emotional instability (fancy words for "a child in meltdown more than not") the last few days. This is not our normal at this stage, (not any more) so we set out to compensate. And since symptoms were pointing to a digestive trigger, and we'd recently listened to some compelling new science on the subject, we went down that little wormhole first. Turns out, we weren't wrong. But somewhere along the way, (ehm, three days ago) she decided to try a supplement that, on paper, ticked all the boxes. Spoiler alert-- tick the boxes it did. The boxes on the paper, and a bunch of other boxes too. (Compliments of a hyper-sensitive immune system. . .) 🫠 Anyway, today she got suspicious. So she stopped said supplement, and suddenly the problem we've been fighting disappeared too. That's when she showed up in my doorway. To be clear, I don't think she meant she doesn't believe in supplements anymore. But she definitely doesn't believe in using them the way most people have been taught. . . Your body never needs a pill. (I mean, your health issue, whatever it is, is never a pill-deficiency syndrome.) Our bodies have needs alright-- and sometimes they do 100% need _something that comes_ in a pill. BUT-- (in our case, at least) remembering that the pill is not the endgame is key. . . Forget that, and the pill might well become part of the problem itself. 🫣 Curious: Do supplements work for you? Or do they generate more symptoms than they solve?