I think I’ve found a new motivational motto. I learn so much from the way God created nature, I learn about Him and His attributes and I learn about me too. I learn how not to handle things sometimes, and how to handle things. Recently, I was having a discussion with my son about leadership and knowing what to do and how to do it and how sometimes not acting on what you know needs to be done because of the anticipation of how others will respond causes us to retreat back into ourselves. I softly reminded him that James encourages us to be doers of the word not just hearers, posters, and knowers (paraphrased with emphasis added) and we should be applying that to everyday life.

One of our former youth students who is now grown with kids of her own tagged me in a post on Facebook not too long ago about growth. It said something to the effect of just because I did it or advocated for it in the past and don’t participate in it or advocate for it now, doesn’t make me a hypocrite when I advocate against something I once did or advocated for. It means I’ve grown. She was struggling with people in her circle accusing her of hypocrisy because she had grown and matured and dared to change her stance on some things.

We were on a grand adventure last week with the pups and saw a sign that said “do the best you can until you know how to do better,” we had a discussion about that being a viable replacement for the saying, “fake it until you make it.” Do the best you can until you know better, when you know better, do better!

These all encapsulate the idea of Forever Forward. I won’t speak for everyone, even though I’m pretty sure we have all stopped ourselves from doing something at least long enough to consider what others will think, I’ve done it far too many times to count. I’ve listened to others’ opinions when I should have trusted my gut. Sometimes, especially in a small town where people have known you your whole life, or in a family where people have seen you grow up they can form a mental model of you that they cling to even when you mature and change, this can be true with both good changes where you have worked hard to grow yourself in areas and mature but they see the little boy or girl or rebellious teenager, etc. they THINK they’ve always known. The converse could be true too, its possible to ride the coattails of your previous character even around people who don’t spend enough time around you anymore to know you don’t live by the standards you previously did. But that’s another story for another day.

It is with these thoughts in our heads sometimes that we retreat within ourselves because we fear the backlash, lack of support, misunderstanding, or even sometimes revealing that we are capable of doing far more than we have been, and so raising expectations for ourselves in the minds of our peers. This can also come with some backlash of “why haven’t you stepped up before now?” We remain paralyzed, rooted in our fear, whether reasonable or not, and don’t move. We do nothing, we allow what WE THINK others may think, or how WE THINK others may respond, to control OUR OWN lack of growth. WE ALLOW IT, which means, WE CHOOSE IT.  If we are a victim, it is only because we chose to be ourselves. Refuse to be a victim. You’ll never get where you want to be with that mindset.

My son was talking with me through some of his struggles and I was sharing some of my own and he reminded me then, just like he did the other day, when I was again struggling, that I always have a tendency to value too heavily what others think or what I think they will think, but never when it pertains to something about faith because I fear God more than any man. I started looking at how to uncompartmentalize that aspect of my faith and inject it into my daily life.

If I was a betting woman, I would bet money that in 1519 when Hernan Cortes landed on the shore of the “New Land” and instructed some 600 men to burn the ships as they advanced on the Aztecs to conquer what is now Mexico, that his men thought a lot of things and not all of them were positive about their leader! But Cortes was ensuring there would be no retreat. If you sat paralyzed in fear, you would die. His motto was clearly, forever forward.

A nautilus, one of God’s beautiful ocean creatures, grows in this same way. Forever forward regardless of what happens. Each chamber is sealed off behind as the nautilus grows, and it does not retreat to the first and earliest or any of the chambers of it’s shell that it once inhabited. Mistakes or not, good or bad it grows always moving forward. When my son was in MMA many years ago his coach would say, “we never lose, we can win or we can learn.” That’s a forever forward motto too. The illustrator of what is about to be 3 of our children’s books painted herself (below) on the shore of our first book because, whether she realizes it or not, she also is the embodiment of growing forever forward and glorifying God regardless of the circumstance she finds herself in. She is as brave a warrior as Cortes himself and I’m grateful to battle by her side as well as my daughter’s who also is the embodiment of forever forward too. She never lets what would shut most people down even really cause her to stumble.

So whatever it is that’s holding you back, especially if its hypothetical thoughts in your own head, its time to burn your ship, seal off your chamber, you know better now do better, grow! One of my very best friends hand painted a treasure for me that I hang wherever we go. It’s a serving tray painted with aspens in vibrant fall colors. At the time she gave it to me she was moving, and I was too focused on that to notice or understand the weight of the word, “Grow” that she included along the outer edge. So many times, when we’ve been doing hard things and experiencing pain, I’ve looked up and seen that word and felt its comfort wash over me. GROW! I used to have terrible growing pains in my legs as a child and I welcomed them because I wanted to be tall! The struggle you’re feeling is growing pains, keep moving forward, don’t retreat! Grow-FOREVER FORWARD