Diaries of a Scared (Brave) Gal

It had been a solid two months since we’d all been together, and we were asking about the big ticket items: relationships, work, the Lord, and finances.

I did the thing, that I’m not proud of, where I sort of shooed them off of me:
Nothing has changed with me! Everything is basically the same!

I wasn’t being falsely humble. I think I’ve just been so close to what terrifies me this past month that I’m somehow getting more used to it. The way you stop noticing the noise when you’ve been living next to the highway long enough.

My personal life plan for early summer 2026 was simple: graduate from seminary, rest a lot, and have a very low-risk season. I was really looking forward to being the girl without a prayer request or a big update.

The truth is: there is a lot going on here.

This past week, I formally stepped into a new role as a nonprofit founder. My for-profit business is expanding, and we’re praying we can raise $75,000 by October to equip the women who need it most. I just so happened to launch that fundraising with the most vulnerable podcast episode I’ve ever released.

I’m in the thick of planning a 700-woman conference, and this is our last week of early ticket sales. I feel massively expectant, but also out on a ledge in a way I haven’t felt in a while.

My husband and I are two years into seriously processing the next phase of ministry for us: what God might be calling us and our church to, how He might be asking us to grow, and what He might be asking us to lay down.

And June held a really unexpected health scare (everything is ok now): a few follow-up appointments and tests, plus a dozen calls with my doctor that more than spiked my cortisol.

So here’s the first entry of the diary of a scared (read: brave) gal who is in it with you:

I am fearful that God won’t show up, and I am positioning myself to be exactly where I need to be when He does.

I am scared He won’t come through, AND I’ll be standing on the cliff without a parachute. I’m choosing to jump anyway.

It doesn’t look heroic. It looks like reading my daily prayer quietly in my chair before I take on the day with shaking hands. I don’t look brave - I look like a sweaty summer working mom who spent her week on nonprofit bylaws and audio/visual contracts for a conference. I’m not feeling courageous. I’m feeling scared.

But look at us? Out here, still acting as he will. Out here, still making moves that put us in precarious positions that require His power working on our behalf.

He has never once been early, and He has never once been late.

I know that sounds like a bumper sticker. I know it doesn’t help at 3am when your heart is racing and the appointment is tomorrow, and the numbers aren’t there yet. But I’ve lived long enough with this God to know that the cliffside moments - the ones where I am absolutely certain I have miscalculated and overextended and misheard, are precisely where His track record is most undeniable.

He shows up: not always how I planned and not always without cost. But He shows up.

So here’s what I’m actually doing with my fear right now, in case it’s useful:

I’m staying where He can find me. Not spiritually performing, not white-knuckling my quiet time: just staying close. The daily prayer in my chair with shaking hands. The five-minute drive where I say out loud: I believe you’re good and I need you to show up. Small, unflashy faithfulness.

I’m letting the fear tell me what I believe. Every specific fear is actually a specific theology question. “Will God show up for the fundraising?” means do I believe He provides? “Will God show up for my health?” means, do I believe He holds me? I’ve started naming the fear and then naming what I’d have to believe about God for that fear to be true. It doesn’t erase the fear, but it relocates it.

I’m keeping company with women who are also scared and going anyway. There is something about being in a room with people who are choosing courage despite the fear, not because they don’t feel it, but because they’ve decided to act as if God will come through, and that does something to your nervous system that no amount of solo brave thoughts can do.

Which is, honestly, why I keep showing up to build what I’m building.

You can’t be brave until you’re scared.

And if you’re scared? You’re right on time.

— Jess