Where Are The Brave Girls?

 

Where are the brave girls? That’s the question I asked myself one day as I opened my Bible. I wanted to get to know these women. I wanted to read their stories, understand their challenges, and watch how they lived out being brave.

Over the course of many days, I kept asking God the question. And gently I felt that God nudge. No, not an audible, out loud voice of God, but a gentle persistent nudge to dig into the first chapter of Matthew.

I opened my Bible and started in verse 18. Yep, I would continually bypass the first 17 verses. To be honest, all those names were really kind of boring to me. I just wanted to get to the good stuff. But God knew I was missing the good stuff. Those God nudges finally caught all of my attention. I backed up and started in Matthew 1:1.

As I read the first 17 verses over and over, something began to happen. Five names caught my attention. Five names. The only women listed in 17 verses. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. God chose these women to be included in the genealogy of His Son, Jesus. They had a story and I needed to know them.

I’ve spent a lot of time with these women. Their stories captured me. Their lives were far from perfect, even a bit messy. They all faced monumental challenges to fulfill their callings. It wasn’t without a great deal of risk. Each life required much bravery. Five chosen women. Five amazing stories.

It was never my intention for my time of study to become anything beyond my personal time with God. But He had other plans. My study time eventually turned into a six week study called God’s Girls…embracing His calling, leaving a legacy. I had the opportunity of leading God’s Girls in my small community. The involvement of those precious women made the study so much better.

For the rest of this 31 day series, it will be my privilege to introduce you to these five brave women. Tomorrow you’ll meet Tamar. And on day 31, this study will be available to you as a free pdf download. Here’s a peek at the cover…

 

If you read this post, you know that writing is a scary thing for me. Living bravely means hitting publish for every blog post and sharing God’s Girls with you. My prayer is that these brave steps will encourage you to live bravely, too.

Who in your life is a brave girl? Please tell us about her.

 

This is day 22 of the 31 days of Living Bravely series. Visit here to see all the posts.