I’ve been encountering the vulnerability of courageous, beautiful hearts lately, and such visions make my own heart seize up at the tenderness of it, make my own heart melt, make my breath stop short, make tears slide down my face.

Words written from a deep-down place that feels like prayer, yet shared in the public spaces of a book’s pages, inviting us to see what that deep-down prayer is like for her. Her true heart. Courage.

Lyrics laced together from a deep-down place of truth meshed with hope and pain and sadness and longing, strung along notes that surprise us with a voice that arrests us. A different voice than any we’ve heard. A songstress giving us her own true heart. Courage.

Images pieced together and collaged, laid over with words that speak the tender longing of a lonely, sad, but hopeful heart. Her courageous prayer.

Poetical words pieced together on page, confessing and yearning, hoping and fearing, all at once. Her true heart, full of so much beauty.

It isn’t easy to get to those deep-down places.

Such revelations require safety. Warmth. Invitation. Love.

They require courage — courage that learns to muster when surrounded in warmth, invitation, safety, love.

In these places, our true glory dwells.

These are the places God lives. This is where he wants to meet us. It is where he wants to lead us. It is where we really live.

Do you know your deep-down honest voice? Can you hear what it is saying now?