Lynn Cowell - Brave Beauty: Finding the Fearless You

PRAISE FOR

Brave Beauty

Getting started with a private devotional time when you are young is the key to a lifelong habit of spending daily time with God. Lynn Cowell turns a big task into mini-chapters and easily digestible moments of time spent with God. Its my hearts desire that every girl learns Brave Beauty!

DANNAH GRESH, bestselling author and creator of Secret Keeper Girl

I cannot begin to tell you how important this book is for girls. As I read through the pages, I found myself approaching every word with excitement and anticipation, even desiring to take the chapter quizzes and participate in the journaling! If you have a young girl in your life, I beg you to get this for her. Girls lives will be divinely changed because of Brave Beauty.

SHARI BRAENDEL, author of Help Me Jesus, I Have Nothing to Wear! and president of Fashion Meets Faith

Brave Beauty is just what young girls need at a critical time in life! These are one hundred bite-sized pieces of godly encouragement from a trusted voice. Ill definitely be using in our home!

COURTNEY DEFEO, author of In This House, We Will Giggle

ZONDERKIDZ

Brave Beauty

Copyright 2017 by Lynn Cowell

This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook.

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zonderkidz, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Epub Edition July 2017 ISBN 9780310763185

ISBN 978-0-310763147

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Interior design: Denise Froehlich

Printed in the United States of America

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Ebook Instructions

In this ebook edition, please use your devices note-taking function to record your thoughts wherever you see the bracketed instructions [Your Notes]. Use your devices highlighting function to record your response whenever you are asked to checkmark, circle, underline, or otherwise indicate your answer(s).

DEDICATION

To my niece, Carley

You are both brave and beautiful.

Thank you so much for all of

your help with Brave Beauty

and making time to spend with

your Aunt Lynn. I love you!

H ey there! My name is Lynn and Im crazy excited that youre joining me through Brave Beauty. Do you like to be adventurous? I do! I love to go places Ive never been, do things Ive never done and see things Ive never seen. Sometimes, though, my adventures take bravery... a lot of bravery! You know what else? Im not always brave, but I want to be. I dont want to miss all the exciting things God has for me and Ive discovered that to do that, I need to be brave.

Thats what the next 100 moments are all about. Whether you plan to use this book for 100 days, a 100 weeks or anything in between, were going on a journey to learn to become courageous, confident, and fearless.

Confident. Its a big word. Dictionary.com explains its meaning as: full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing. That is who we want to become. Girls who have full trust, belief in the powers, trustworthiness, and reliability of Christ.

Growing up. I dont have to tell you that life can be tough. You already know that. Maybe people around you like your mom, a teacher, or a coach are helping you figure out all these changes. Or maybe, you feel like youre doing it alone. You dont really know what youre doing. I get that. I often feel like I dont know what Im doing too; I think it is part of being human. I have found some things that help me when I dont know what to do next and one might really surprise you. I found it by accident.

Writing. Yes, writing! Im guessing that so far in your life, writing is something you have done mostly at school. Assignments. Homework-type stuff. Writing and funto you, those two just dont belong in the same sentence!

When I was in third grade, someone gave me a little, gold book that said, Five Year Diary on the outside. I cant even remember who gave me my first diary. I wish I did so I could thank them. I still have that little book, although its a bit beat-up. (You can see it on my scrapbook. Just ask your parent if you can go to LynnCowell.com and click on Brave Beauty. Youll find my scrapbook there). When it was new, this book was filled with blank pages just waiting for me to record my thoughts and feelings.

If you were here, sitting with me around my big, round kitchen table, having a giant piece of double chocolate, chocolate chip Bundt cake (my favorite), Id run up to my room, take my diary out of my drawer, and share with you some of those thoughts and feelings that filled up all the pages of that little book.

For many years, I kept all those words hidden. (I would have freaked out if anyone found it! Goodness, can you imagine? Gasp! All my secrets were stored there!) Inside was my heart; what I didnt want anyone else to know: having a crush on Jim and John, how I hoped one day to be a childrens book illustrator, and how I liked my summer until one of my best friends made me feel forgotten. Then I couldnt wait for summer to end.

I discovered that writing helped me figure out this thing called becoming me. Thats why I wrote this book; I wanted to help you on this journey to becoming you; a brave and fearless you!

Together, were going to:

See who God says you are

Talk about tough stuff youre going through

Look at people in the Bible and see how they handled hard things

Get to know more about God and how He can help us

Learn how His words can help us become fearless and brave.

Well have fun, too! Think of this book a bit like my little, gold diary.

Since writing in my diary was a big thing for me when I was your age, I thought maybe you might try writing, too. Thats why I peppered quizzes and questions throughout this book. I want you to think of it as a diary of sorts; a place where you can write down your innermost thoughts; things you want to be just between you and God. Who knows? Maybe like me, youll hang onto this book and one day read it when youre a grown up, too.

As you write, remember there are no right or wrong answers. These answers are for your eyes only; not your parent, small group leader, or anyone else. Just you!