I’m sitting in a coffee shop in a sketchy section of Orlando, Florida, a couple of miles from the law school where AMCA Moot Court Nationals will be held in a few hours, seriously questioning my priorities. Sunny day, zippy rental car, no kids—and I am going to spend the day watching moot court rounds inside a law school?!? And I’m excited about this?!? I literally passed the exits for Disney World, Sea World, AND Universal Studios to get here!?!

Once I found my exit and the law school, I searched coffee shops because—PRIORITIES!!!  The first one that came up must have closed down because nothing near that address had any semblance of the word coffee in it. I drove around, remembering my friend Amy’s warning to keep my possessions with me at all times and to avoid the street corners with prostitutes. Simple enough.

I spotted this lone coffee shop on an otherwise empty street and circled the block about three times before finding a paid parking lot behind the building. As I walked through the alley between the lot and the front of the building, I heard a loud boom followed by a siren. I jumped—and briefly entertained the thought that someone may have just been shot. “Oh well,” I thought, “if this is the way I go out, so be it.”

The inside of this coffee shop feels like a garden. Plants everywhere, a plant mural painted on one wall, flooring made to look like a worn outdoor patio, and garden-style patio tables and chairs. I ordered a craft latte called Pacific Fog—lavender syrup, honey, and pink Himalayan sea salt—complete with the classic heart-crafted-in-steamed-milk. When I set it on my table beside the plant and opened my computer to grade papers, a question tumbled out instead:

Why did it take me so long to live fearless?

To even get to the state of Florida, I had to orchestrate a small army of people to cover my life, AND I had to overcome my fear of flying. I have overcome that fear numerous times over the past several years as I traveled with Marina and Jonah to various speech and debate competitions. But it was different traveling with them somehow—my maternal instincts to protect them from something that didn’t remotely scare them somehow made me brave.

In many ways, it is really pitiful that something as simple and commonplace as taking a plane to another state for the weekend constitutes bravery to me, but that is another question altogether. What matters is that something inside me is changing for the better, and I like it!

I recently read a memoir by Allison Fallon called Indestructible: Leveraging Your Broken Heart to Become a Force of Love & Change in the World. The book itself frustrated me in many ways, but some of the people the author quoted in her story spoke deeply to me. One was a woman named Robi Damelin whose son was a Jewish soldier killed by a Palestinian sniper. She said, “When the worst thing that has ever happened to you happens, you realize you don’t have any reason to be afraid anymore.” (Indestructible, p. xviii)

I think this is what is breaking open most of the fears in my life. The biggest ones were realized, and now the remaining fears have lost their power. Still present but no longer paralyzing me.

It is hard not to regret the many years of fearful living, both the tangibles—afraid to leave my children, afraid to fly, afraid of physical pain, afraid of death—and the intangibles—afraid of betrayal, afraid of loss, afraid of failure, afraid of disappointing people. I know I would have been a better mom, wife, and friend if I had lived more fearlessly. I would have gripped everyone and everything a little looser, and that would have been better for all of us.

All weekend as I drove I-4 in my zippy rental car, the album Beautiful Surrender by Jonathan David and Melissa Helser was my faithful companion. It includes the song “No Longer Slaves,” a song significant in my journey out of an abusive marriage. This weekend, though, another song caught my attention—“Catch the Wind”—a power song, perfect for blaring in the Florida sun on a weekend away:

I am strong and full of life; I am steadfast, no compromise.  I lift my sails, to the sky; I’m gonna catch the wind.

I am bold, no fear inside; Spread my wings, open my life.  Like an eagle, whose home is the sky; I’m gonna catch the wind.  

I’m gonna catch the wind.

This is not how I have lived most of my life. I’m a firstborn for one thing, which gives me a naturally cautious and responsible nature. But living fearless is not the same as living careless or reckless. Living fearless is living free from worry, regret, and shame. It is trying new things, going new places, meeting new people. It is valuing experiences over the inconveniences of obtaining them. It is stepping out of your comfort zone and realizing that while slightly terrifying, there is so much worth seeing and doing in those uncomfortable zones.

I’m still afraid of flying. I was “that girl” on every flight I took this weekend. The one everyone eyed with a touch of fear as she swung her too full carry-on into the overhead bin, secretly praying they would not be the passenger afflicted with a black eye when I missed my mark (no one suffered this fate). I was the one popping Dramamine when we hit turbulence, grabbing the back of the seat in front of me, and feeling around to ensure the nausea bag was in the seatback pocket. I was the one playing Julie True through her headphones and envisioning angels carrying the aircraft through the snowy skies we encountered well past the Florida line, in order not to completely freak out and terrify everyone around me.

Living fearless in so many ways yet still so very afraid.

In Joyce Meyer’s book Living Courageously: You Can Face Anything, Just Do It Afraid she writes: “Courage is not the absence of fear; it is fear that has said its prayers and decided to go forward anyway. I was tormented emotionally and prevented from doing many of the things that I wanted to do for many years simply because I was waiting to not feel afraid, but then I discovered that I could ‘do it afraid’…When we confront our fears with faith in God, we might still feel the effects of those fears, but they cannot stop us. Fear must eventually bow its knee to courage—it has no other choice.”

This truth reminds me of another piece of counsel I received from a wise and beloved doctor—Dr. Bear, the kindly family physician to Franklin the Turtle who, in fictional storyland, also acts as the community orthopedic surgeon. (Yes, too much medical knowledge really ruins good children’s books.) In the story, Franklin took a soccer ball to the chest and cracked his shell. Dr. Bear was about to operate on Franklin to place a pin in his shell, but she ordered an x-ray first. Franklin was distraught because Dr. Bear told him that the x-ray would be pictures of his insides. He confessed, “Everyone thinks I’m brave, but I’ve just been pretending. X-rays will show that inside I’m scared.” Dr. Bear reassured Franklin that x-rays only show shells and bones, not feelings. But then she said, “But just because you’re afraid doesn’t mean you aren’t brave. Being brave means doing what you have to do, no matter how scared you feel.”

I think living fearless is similar. It isn’t that the lifelong fears that have plagued you suddenly disappear. It is that life has shown you that you can survive even when some of your worst fears are realized. And in that survival comes a freedom to be brave. To do it afraid. To live fearless.

And with every flight through the friendly skies and every step through the slums of Orlando and every mile in my zippy rental car, I gained a little more courage and a little more taste of living fearless. And that makes me brave enough to dream of the future.

I’ll start small. Travel to Colorado to see friends and their beautiful state. Go on a cruise. Write a book proposal.

In a few years, I may get a little bolder. Write a dissertation. Fly across the ocean and tour the lands where Jesus walked. Go on a date and take a chance on finding a cherishing kind of love—one like I have never known.

Living fearless. Not careless. Not reckless. Not unafraid. Just aware that when our greatest fears are realized, it paralyzes the ones that remain. And paralyzed fears have no grip on us—no strength with which to grasp us and no capacity to hold us back.

So I am off—to catch the wind and fly…to live FEARLESS. Anybody wanna join me?

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV)