The Courage of Beginning Something New
The woods feel quieter than they should for the season—we’re suddenly buried in record setting snow after a late blizzard. The landscape changed overnight back into winter. But still the light has begun to shift. And in the last few mornings, I’ve noticed the first robins. Just a handful, perched brave on bare branches, their calls thin but determined against the gray sky. They’re responding to something unseen—some internal permission that says, It’s time.
It reminded me that beginnings are brave simply because they begin, even with the sudden stops and starts, even reverses where it feels like you’re back to square one. Those early birds don’t bring spring overnight. Their presence is modest and fragile. I often question their timing–perhaps still a bit early given these temperatures. But those first tentative notes—ring in a new season. Their arrival is an act of trust. A willingness to show up before conditions are ideal. A reminder that beginnings rarely look perfect when we’re standing inside them.
That reflects exactly what’s been happening for me over the last few weeks. While the world is in chaos, I’ve been focusing on finding small and quiet reprieves. Then, I miraculously got wind of a new studio space…a dream space. The kind I would have NEVER thought possible!
It’s on the second floor of a historic building on Main Street in a sweet little arts driven town that is only 15 miles from my house. We’re talking hardwood floors, original woodwork and wainscotting with 8 foot windows overlooking the marina and the mouth of the Jordan river. It has a work room with huge windows and beautiful light, a salon area for greeting and meeting and a kitchenette and great storage. After some back and forth, I somehow ended up with the whole space to myself. It’s a dream come true.
I’ve been following a rhythm I could have never believed possible. That’s just how God works!
I’ve been thinking about my own early beginnings lately—the stops and starts of it. Ideas that feel sudden and unexpected right next to half-formed projects not ready for anyone else to see, the desires still too delicate to speak. There’s a vulnerability in letting hope rise both quickly and slow after such a long season of stillness. I find comfort in how nature makes space for different timelines, different thresholds, different ways of beginning. Hope itself is a kind of thaw, asking us to soften in places we kept frozen for protection. And yet, each time I let the early version appear—awkward, incomplete, unpolished—I feel a small courage gather inside me. A willingness to be in process.
For so long, I believed beginnings required strength or certainty. Now I see they ask for the courage to show up imperfectly. It takes faith to follow the breadcrumbs and know the path will reveal itself and grow truer as we go. The birds don’t wait for perfect conditions to begin. They start where they are, with what they have, trusting the season to carry them the rest of the way, in the way their nature asks them to–just like the maples love the freeze–thaw, birches the steadier warmth to come until suddenly, you find yourself in a new season.
Maybe you’re standing in a similar in-between—feeling a little more warmth in your days, sensing the start of something but unsure where it will lead. Maybe your early attempts feel clumsy or too small to matter. They don’t need to be confident to count. The courage is in the starting, in allowing hope the room to rise even when you’re not certain it’s safe yet. You have to make room for God to show up and then be willing to believe it when He does.
What early, imperfect beginning is asking for your courage right now?
May this late-March season offer you the gentleness to begin imperfectly, the patience to honor the timing, and the bravery to let hope gather in you, slowly and surely because God will. You can find me in the new space, dancing around as I settle in. I’m beside myself and so grateful!!!
