The Daily Pearl
On Courage
A pearl kept from the brand’s mornings: a verse to hold, a prayer to say and a word to carry.
“Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
Joshua 1 : 9
A Prayer for This Morning
Lord, I ask not for the absence of fear but for the presence you promised. Steady me where the ground feels new. Walk ahead of me into the rooms I would rather not enter, and let me find you already there.
Affirmation
I am not fearless; I am accompanied, and that is better.
The Reflection
The command comes to Joshua at the worst possible moment: his mentor dead, a river in flood ahead, a promise that now depends on him. Be strong and of a good courage is not a poster; it is battlefield instruction, given three times in nine verses, because once is never enough for the genuinely afraid.
Notice what the courage is anchored to. Not to Joshua's competence, which is untested; not to favourable conditions, which do not exist. The whole weight rests on a single small word: with. The Lord thy God is with thee. Courage, in Scripture, is rarely a feeling and almost always a deduction.
Most of a woman's courage is spent invisibly: the conversation finally had, the boundary held, the morning faced again. Heaven counts these as campaigns. Cross the day's river slowly if you must; the promise does not require speed, only movement.
In Her Company
St Joan of Arc
A young woman who trusted the voice of God over the fear of men, and carried her courage faithfully to the very end.
Joan of Arc was born to a farming family in Domrémy in about 1412. Convinced of a calling from God, she led French forces to relieve the siege of Orléans at seventeen. Captured and tried, she stayed faithful to her calling to the end, dying at Rouen in 1431. She was canonised in 1920 and is a patroness of France.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
The Wardrobe