Happy Monday friends! Hope you had a fabulous weekend!!

I am so blessed to introduce you to this amazing woman today!! She is wise beyond her years, beautiful inside & out, and I just love her heart to chase after the things of God!

I know you will be blessed by her story & the way she has chosen to Live Brave!

Hi everyone! My name is Lauren Miller and I am SO honored to get to share with you during this Live Brave Series! I’ve been very inspired and touched reading through other women’s posts of learning to live brave in their businesses and personal lives. What a gift to encourage each other with our stories, huh?

So let me tell you a little about me and then we can dive in, K? I’m 26 years old and married to an amazing man named Luke and we have an 8 month old Goldendoodle dog named Linus (we apparently like “L” names…). I work part time at a flowershop in Mesa and someday I hope to own my own floral business! I really love flowers, gardening, crafting, decorating, and playing music.

I’ve been wrestling over what to write for this blog for a long time! It’s a bit terrifying to choose raw vulnerability in front of a bunch of people, but this whole post is about being brave, right? Right. So let’s talk.

When we’re little kids, we often learn that being brave is when you choose to do the hard thing you’re scared of. It’s when the warrior gathers up their courage and runs head first into battle. It’s when you make the sacrifice that costs something. It’s when you say the hard words you’re afraid to say.

To me, “bravery” is one of those romanticized words that simply boils down into “trust”… Trusting God to take care of you. Trusting God’s plan. Trusting God’s timing. We can live brave in the face of fear and death only because we trust in the One who overcame it.

I’ve been faced with many opportunities to grow my trust. Last year while we were living in Kansas City, we experienced the loss of multiple family members. And during that summer, my husband and I also lost our first baby. Miscarriage is unfortunately very common among women, but I never thought it would happen to me.

As many of our life plans fell through, the combination of loss, stress, unexpressed grief, and anger created a cloud of fear over me. My inability to control my life plans was so obvious and I felt helpless and alone.

During this time, I began to show symptoms of what I know now is extreme anxiety disorder. My every waking moment became plagued with fear. I became incredibly sick and I was unable to eat for weeks. I spent most days in bed, half awake and half asleep wondering if I was dying.

I had uncontrollable shaking, hot flashes, nausea, numbness, rapid heart rate, fatigue, and a sense I was constantly being gagged. You can understand why I thought I was dying! I went to multiple doctors, had many blood tests, and even had a CT scan – thinking something was terribly wrong with my health. But no one was able to diagnose me with anything, because outside of my anxiety, my health was fine.

Throughout this whole summer, both my husband and I became so desperate for God. We felt so humbled and knew all we could confess to him was, “I love you God. I don’t understand you or why this is happening, but I still love you”. We began to worship, pray and read the bible with an authenticity I hadn’t experienced before. Passages from the Bible like Psalm 18:4-6 came alive to me:

“The pangs of death surrounded me, And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried out to my God;”

As my panic attacks and sickness continued to grow, we made the decision to move back to Arizona to be near our families. We knew we needed support. And it was then that I started to see an amazing counselor who was able to properly diagnose my anxiety disorder.

Every day since our miscarriage last year, I’ve been forced to “live brave”. I’ve had to choose the bravery that says, “I’m not going to give up. I’m going to make it through another day. I’m going to choose trust”. And what a difficult journey it is – because believe me, I’ve no where near mastered the bravery and trust thing! I’ve spent the last 8 months going on and then off antidepressants, working through hard counseling sessions, having bad mornings where I wake with crippling anxiety, and even experiencing a second miscarriage.

But you know what? Despite all the fear and anxiety, I have so much hope. I believe in my heart now so certainly that God is good. And he loves me. And he has good plans for me. And I believe the same for you.

“But this I call to mind,  and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;     his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:21-23

Daily, God is rescuing me from fear. And daily the Spirit is giving me grace to keep moving forward. And you know what? It’s getting easier! Somehow in the midst of it all, the trust is growing stronger and the fear is getting smaller. I don’t know why I have to walk through all this, and I don’t know what hard journeys each of you face – but we can trust God’s plan. For me, living brave means I take my thoughts captive everyday and say NO to the anxiety. It means I go to the counseling sessions, the doctors appointments, and continue to believe God’s promise that we will have children one day… and to believe that fear and sickness is not my future.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

And I pray the same for you – that in whatever you are facing… whether it be job loss, sickness, hard relationships or family problems, that you live brave by choosing trust. Trusting our good Father to take care of us because he loves us so. His plans are always good.

“He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, From those who hated me, For they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, But the Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.” Psalm 18:16-19