Let's All Be Brave: Living Life with Everything You Have

Sometimes you pick up a book that grabs you and you can't get away from it. Maybe that says more about you than the book, but in this case its “both and.” Let me begin by admitting that I love Nashville. Lived there for 15 years. It is home to me. So when I read that this book is dedicated to Nashville, and each essay begins by telling you the place (a.k.a., coffee shop) where Annie F. Downs wrote it, well...I just had to read further. I wasn't really thinking that I need to be brave. Though since I can tend to be fearful, I didn't think it was a bad idea to consider reading it.

Downs and I not only have Nashville in common but there's two more things. She's known for getting lost. Me? All I know how to do is follow the blue ball on the maps app. Where it leads I go. In the recent case of using a not-to-be-named maps app made by one of the world's foremost companies that makes smart phones, I went way off the beaten path. And, she mentions flying to Minneapolis. My second home. At this point I was hooked. People who live in Nashville, and love Nashville are special people. Nashville is remarkably different than any other city I've lived in or visited.

Annie's vulnerability in this book is endearing. Her voice witty and personality winsome. She writes like she speaks. (From viewing her YouTube channel.) Approachable. You can tell that just beneath her poise is a funny, witty person waiting to burst into a good time. Her calling is to tell young women that God made them on purpose and that they are unique, and to encourage them to be brave. (Hence the title of this book.) The essays are short and fast-paced. Her voice is real. Teens today will be drawn to it. Just reading the first chapter of the book makes you want to get up and do something!

I love that she's not encouraging us to believe in ourselves. She hasn't bought in to the Hollywood lie that you can be whatever you dream you can be. Yet, even so, there were a few places where it felt like some new age philosophies made brief appearances in the text. I was confused in places as to whether she was using the word courage interchangeably with faith. And it felt like her focus often centered on encouraging the reader that they are better “selves” than they give themselves credit for being. I believe that we do need to believe in ourselves but only to the degree that we see ourselves properly in relationship to who God is. If we have a clear understanding of who God is, we will have a proper understanding of ourselves. And that cannot be found in Sunday School, at a church retreat, a college campus ministry or in traveling the world. The only place that we can go to find a proper view of ourselves is the Word of God. Let's All Be Brave does contain stories that refer to Scripture. Downs refers to quiet times. She gives testimony of prayer and listening to the voice of God, and her fearful obedience yet I did close the back cover wishing that she had directed me more clearly and more often to the One who controls every molecule of the universe. Perhaps her intention in these essays was to highlight the way God uses people and circumstances to direct us, and He does. I just wished I would have come away with a stronger leading that while its true that He uses circumstances and people, the primary way that He leads us is through reading and studying the Word of God. Through His Word - the Bible - our Heavenly Father gives us the faith that we need to do what we are called to do. Yes, we do need to be brave in the sense that we exercise childlike faith knowing that God the Holy Spirit has the ability to communicate clearly to us what He wants us to do, and He gives us the faith to do it. It doesn't come from inside of us. It comes from outside of us.

Still, I did enjoy reading this book.