By my story sister Jennifer Upton

We sit at our computers, hers outside of Dallas, mine in Atlanta, and we write together. Click click click click, OKay, show me what you got. She thinks I am doing her a favor. I will finish my edits ahead of schedule because of her. I believe in this book again. When I read her some of the parts I have written, she laughs out loud in the coffee shop she is occupying and tells me she can’t wait for my audio book to come out. She thinks I am going to get a book deal that includes an audiobook. She believes in me. In this.

I have a partner in Story Sessions 201. Every Sunday we exchange chapters, except for when the Spirit not only tells me to rest, but tells her to tell me to rest. Then she makes sure I am resting. She gives me the hard truth about writing books, internet fame, the condition of my heart. I love her for her truth telling. I love her for her words, that she lets me peek into and savor before most.

I have a whole team of women, actually. They have been forcing me to see myself as a writer. As one who writes like she breathes and eats and sees. They don’t care that I have a full time job that I also love, or a pair of crazy babies. They don’t mind when I have to shout over the girls to say what I want to say on our conference calls that have become like church to me. The find it endearing. I do not have words for this. Me, the writer, my gratitude for them is too big for words.

I have found my tribe.

I am linking up with Lisa Jo Baker’s Five Minute Fridays. Join me?

Erin Leigh used to go to my church, where somehow we never really connected. This is sad because we were clearly supposed to be besties. Perhaps it is for the best. I don’t know that the world could handle that. She ran a first marathon last spring to raise money for the education of 26 girls in Nepal. This was after she moved to NYC because she was ready for a change, and now she is running her second marathon for a second year of education for the same 26 girls.

Bravery is My Fickle Boyfriend by Erin Leigh Patterson

We’ve all known him. The allusive guy who is too cool for words, way-out-of-my-league kind. Not the nice one who tells you how he feels and communicates and leaves no mystery (read: boring). The nice one, he is nice. Nice is great, but bravery… Bravery is allusive.

This weekend I ran 17 miles. 17 miles at my slow pace allows for lots of thinking time. I mostly thought about the hamburger I would later dominate, but I also thought a lot about the girls in Nepal who are in school. I thought about their strength and that their strength is pure and beautiful and so very needed. I stole some of their strength as I was running. Thankfully strength begets strength and there’s no finite amount, but plenty to go around.

In thinking about strength I remembered Abby’s blog post from earlier this year, how she told her daughters that they “help people do things that are brave and strong.” I remember being a big puddle of tears as I read that, partly because all the miles wear me out so I was really tired, and also because it was so humbling to be associated with the words “strong” and “brave”.

There’s that fickle boyfriend. I want to be brave, really I do. But me?

But here’s the thing I’m learning while training for my second marathon: I wasn’t born brave or strong. No one was. We were just born. Being brave, it’s an act. “People who do things that are brave and strong.” Abby didn’t say she helps her friends who are brave. But the ones who do things that are strong.

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to run 17 miles. I woke up one day, got offered a spot in the NYC Marathon, took it because I am no fool, and then I started training. I am not going to complete the marathon if I can’t complete 17 miles. It’s basic math. But just like you exercise your muscles to lift weights and start humbly with 5 pounds, life lets us start small.

Whatever situation I am in these days I am finding the need to exercise different muscles. I have a new job and often have no idea what is going on. I am trying to run another marathon and have no idea how to keep my  tired eyes open while working at said job. I am trying to raise awareness about girls’ education so we can raise enough money to send 26 girls to school for their 2nd year and… yeah.

Strong starts small. And brave, well brave might be fickle but it only needs to last for a few crazy minutes while you make a crazy decision. The rest of that story is what makes you strong.

(This is Abby again) I love this post because it shows the way we see ourselves versus the way others see us. Erin Leigh IS brave and strong. Always. And yet…it surprises her. I am working on a theory that self-image is like a fun house mirror, and we need someone else to hold up the mirror or we can’t get an accurate perception of ourselves.

If you would like to support Erin Leigh in her Brave and Strong efforts you can:

Tweet encouragement at her. Training for a marathon is a THING and she is DOING IT. Let us encourage her. (@erinleighnyc)

Spread the Word. Share the heck out of this post, and her story.

Pray for her. And tell her. Send her your prayers for her, ask her for a girl she is raising money for that you can support in prayer. You can use email: Erinleigh (dot) Patterson (at) gmail (dot) com or twitter: @erinleighnyc

Support her effort financially. Educating girls is one of the best ways to serve a developing nation. Erin Leigh is running 26 miles (again!) to raise money for a second year of education for 26 girls. I don’t want to train for a marathon, so instead I will give her money. You can support her efforts by donating here.

It is October. This always takes me by surprise. In the midwest the changing of the seasons was marked by a crisp note in the air. The shorts were put away, the sweaters were pulled out. Fall did not sneak up on us. Now I live in the south (I mean, I used the word y’all a thousand times in my last post) and the fall sneaks up on me. I am still wearing sundresses, and strip off my cardigan in the school parking because it is too warm to wear it in my car.

But the warmth does not make up for the lack of light these days. I can feel the depression, hazy around the edges of my brain, waiting for the chance to descend. You can track the cycles of my mental health, following the waning sunlight, since late elementary school. October starts to get spotty, November is never good. I begin to recover in March when the sun comes back.

by the amazing Jennifer Upton

In my worst October, I turned 17. I wore a soft pink sweater to school and it was just a touch too warm. My mom got a chocolate raspberry tort from our favorite bakery. My boyfriend and a friend from school came over for dinner. My friend gave me a poster that read, CHOOSE JOY. That Friday night I missed yet another football game and my friends from the marching band called from the band room after the game. They called to wish me a happy birthday and I couldn’t stop crying.

My friends mom called mine, and they came to my rescue in a mini-van, took me to a sleepover that had been transformed to an impromptu birthday party. Half way through the midnight movie I went upstairs to pee and started sobbing uncontrollably. When a girl came upstairs after me, found me sobbing at the kitchen sink and asked me what was wrong, I remember gasping for breath, and howling “I DON’T KNOW.” I started medicating my depression (under the careful watch of my mom) that weekend.

It was hard that year, choosing joy. I am grateful my friends saw me struggling. I am grateful for the reminder. I needed it that fall. I need it in the fall. I can feel the depression seeping in. I am trying to choose joy.

I am trying to choose joy in the two herbal supplements I swallow every morning, with them I swallow the prideful idea I should be able to do it on my own. Sometimes God’s grace comes inside the bottles you buy 2 for 1 at the GNC.

I am trying to choose joy in the simple things. It is scarf week! I love scarves, and am sporting one every day in my classroom. This makes me happy, not shallow.

I am trying to choose joy in leaning into this season, pumpkin patches, fires in the evening, salted caramel mochas, Last night I made a grilled cheese sandwich with brie and honey crisp apples. Sometimes fall is subtle, and that is delicious.

I am choosing joy by letting go and laughing. My girls want to wear their Halloween costumes recently acquired on Ebay pretty much daily. Why not? Why not let Priscilla dress up as a cupcake and sing happy birthday to herself for the rest of the month? Why not let Juliet sport her ice-cream head and let her tell me she is delicious? She is delicious, they both are.

I am choosing to see the beauty, in the fall leaves, in myself, in the people who love. Sometimes the imperfections are the exact reason I love them so much.

By the amazing Jennifer Upton

This choosing joy thing, it is a fight for me. I think it always will be. So often I hear of joy as something you are surprised by, something soft and warm. In the fall, for me, joy is something I have to fight for, cling to, swallow hard.  But I have read the promises in the word. This is a thing that already belongs to me.

It is the fall, October has come, and I am fighting for my joy.