A prayer for fierce-hearted women by Holly Girth.

Be strong and let your hearts be courageous.

Be strong and let your heart be courageous all you who put your hope in the

Lord.

Psalm 31. 24.

I didn't know loving people would be so hard. I silently say this to God in a coffee shop on an ordinary Tuesday morning.

I'm sitting at a table with a scratch wood surface and above me folk music

comes through the speakers. My latte is half gold and my mood is

threatening to become lukewarm too. Haven't we all been there? I think back to another

moment in a coffee shop when I was around 30 years old, wide-eyed and naive, full of dreams.

This is the age where I was both tender and ambitious.

I thought I could save the world and conveniently forgot someone already had.

I'm looking 40 in the face now and I have a few more wrinkles around my eyes, a few more scars

in my heart.

I also have a wound still healing from recent words that cut like a sword all the way down to the bone.

For a long time I didn't understand that broken people have sharp edges and if we dare to love to make a difference to put ourselves out there, then inevitably we will sometimes end up startled and bleeding.

I wish someone had whispered this in my ear years ago, leaned right in and said,

Oh yes, a lifetime with Jesus is going to be a wonderful adventure.

There's going to be joy and hope and beautiful relationships.

But listen, there's something else you need to know.

You're not going on holiday, you're going into battle. I imagine I wouldn't have liked or

understood this at the time. I probably wouldn't even have believed it,

...