Diaries of a Scared (Brave) Gal

It wasn’t traumatic. It wasn’t devastating. It was just a few months of slow-burn heaviness and humid tears.

Our church plant was going through the very typical church-plant-dramatic-sad split. It happens. We’d heard it might happen. I didn’t think it would happen to us. I thought we were immune. That year on Easter, we’d had about 250 people in the room. By July, we were down to 40.

There was a new church plant on the scene, and serious drama, gossip, and unhealthy leadership issues had been brewing for a while. When Nick and I tell the story now, we don’t blame everyone else. We should have seen it coming. We shouldn’t have gotten so defensive. We shouldn’t have handed so much leadership to people who had so little buy-in.

Not only had I not expected the split: I hadn’t expected to lose so many friends in it. And wouldn’t you know it: that was the summer I’d planned to write a book on friendship.

That idea got scrapped. To this day, I feel confident I’ll never write a book on friendship, because apparently, that’s the exact season your closest relationships blow up. But I was still contracted to write a book. So I started brainstorming with my editor.

Here’s the part I don’t say enough when I tell this story: I could not have felt less like the girl for the job if I’d tried. I felt personally responsible for something I loved (my church) that seemed to break overnight. (Spoiler: it would rebound.) This was going to be my third trade book, and my second one hadn’t performed well. I loved the coaching steps I’d developed, but I hadn’t used them for all that long. (Narrator’s note: I’ve used them every week since 2018 and am still so grateful for them.)

But that summer, I dove into the life of Moses: studying, reading, writing, and out came You Are the Girl for the Job.

Am I the right mom for these kids? Do I have what it takes to lead well at work? Am I even a good friend? Can I actually be a helpful wife? Am I too much? Am I not enough? Will I know what to say when it matters? Will I be found out?

Some serious-minded Christians might hear all this and think it’s frivolous: a little narcissistic, a little navel-gazing. Here’s my counter: you are a human, following God, in a world fraught with pain and difficulty. If you don’t doubt your own capacity every once in a while, I’d say you’re probably prideful. And if you pretend you never feel ill-equipped, you’re probably faking it - which means you’re missing out on the exact kind of honesty that leads to intimacy and healing with God.

Can I actually raise the money for this nonprofit? Am I too hard on my almost-adult kids? Too easy on them? Would my husband go further in his calling with a different wife? Will I always be the girl who does good work, but not great work? Am I an imposter because I write the books but still wrestle with the truths inside them?

It’s this question that makes Exodus 3 and 4 some of my favorite passages in the whole Bible, and not for the reasons you’d expect. Not the burning bush, not the holy ground, not even the I Am Who I Am. What gets me is the back-and-forth. God tells Moses what He’s going to do and who He is. And Moses keeps asking how he’ll do it, and who God has made him to be.

I used to think the goal of this fear was to talk myself out of it: to build a strong enough case for my own competence that the doubt would quiet down for good. Prove I’m qualified, and the fear goes away. But that’s not how it’s worked, not once, not in eight years of writing about this. The fear doesn’t leave because I finally feel sufficient. It loses its grip because I stop needing to.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Not despite it. Not in spite of it, worked around like a flaw to manage. In it. Your actual insufficiency — the real one, not the humble-brag version — might be the exact condition He’s working with. Not a design flaw He’s patiently tolerating. The material.

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

1. I’m letting the question change. Instead of am I equipped for this, I’m asking is He?

2. I’m keeping the receipts. Not achievements - but evidence of His grace. T

3. I’m letting my weakness stay in the room instead of hiding it. For years, I thought the job was to minimize my gaps before anyone noticed them. Now, more often, I just say the true thing out loud: I’ve never done this before or I don’t actually know if this will work, and then keep going anyway.

You don’t have to feel like the girl for the job to be her. You just have to show up, insufficient and all, and let Him be sufficient in the gap. That’s not a consolation prize, it’s the whole design.

You can’t be brave until you’re scared.
And if you’re scared? You’re right on time.

— Jess