“Act, and God will act.” –St. Joan of Arc

Spoiler alert, I am no Joan of Arc. I wouldn’t know the first thing about battling the English army in the 15th century. I’m not so sure Joan did either, actually. What I do know is that Joan, a young peasant girl in rural France, heard the voices of three saints and was instructed by them to save her country. She led the French army into battle—at 16 years old. Among many other admirable traits, it’s her humility and confidence that draw me to her. She was confident and trusted in the Lord’s will and His provision over her, that He would come through for her. She was humble enough to know that her actions, her victories were not her own but the Lord’s.

Certainly for women, in this time and culture, confidence can so easily be misconstrued as arrogance, pretension, or self-importance. The definition of confidence is full trust and belief in the powers or reliability of a person or thing.[1] Increasingly, our culture is teaching women—particularly young women—to place their full trust in things like their appearance, their weight, their photos on social media, and how many Instagram followers they have. Social media pictures are usually, if not always, filtered. “Followers” do not mean friends. And our beauty, as Proverbs tells us, “is fleeting” (Proverbs 31:30). When we place our full trust in things of this world, we will never be satisfied. “The world and its desires pass away.” (1 John 2:17) As Christians, we are called to have confidence and place our full trust and belief in the powers of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “The man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is the Lord, is blessed.” (Jeremiah 17:7)

To be humble, like Jesus, is to be open and receptive to what the Lord wills for us, knowing that all things come from Him and should ultimately point back to Him. Conversely, ungodly pride points only to ourselves. The trendy, oft-used statement in our culture, “You do you,” expresses not a humble nature, but rather an individual, self-serving one: “It’s all about what’s good for me.” Humility, instead, changes our perspective from one of navel-gazing and self-preservation to one of serving others as Christ did. “He came to serve, not to be served.” (Mark 10:45) Humble confidence, therefore, is trusting fully in our Lord and His promises, thus cooperating with the work the Lord does in and through us, and then pointing all the glory back to God.

Who more than Mary, our Blessed Mother, embodies humility and confidence in the Lord’s will? There is no greater example for women than our Blessed Mother. Lisa Brenninkmeyer writes in Discovering Our Dignity that Mary “led by example, showing total confidence [emphasis added] in God when she said, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word’ (Luke 1:38).”[2] Mary declared she was a lowly handmaiden who had been blessed by our Lord when she visited her cousin Elizabeth after the Angel Gabriel departed. “Mary had a true understanding of who she was. She didn’t doubt her dignity or worth in God’s eyes. This is genuine humility, because humility [emphasis added] is seeing ourselves as God sees us.”[3]

I believe that both St. Joan of Arc and the Blessed Mother knew that on their worst days, as well as on their best days, they needed the Lord. And they both were confident that He would show up for them. Can we say the same? How can we grow in humble confidence and emulate them?

The easiest way, dear sister, is to spend time in prayer and in Scripture. When we read Scripture we are spending time with the Lord. Just as when we spend time with a friend we learn more about her, so will time spent in Scripture teach us about the character of God, His trustworthiness, and His tender love for each of us.

Other valuable ways to grow in the virtues of humility and confidence in the Lord include:

• Seek reconciliation. As a friend once told me, “Confession is a kick in the pants to our pride.” There is nothing more humble than to go to our Lord in this beautiful sacrament and receive the grace of His mercy. “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:10) And the grace that we receive will help us to stand tall and firm, confident in who we are in Christ—“a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
• Call upon the intercession of our Blessed Mother and St. Joan of Arc. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, a communion of saints, who are just waiting to be “tagged in” for you. And make no mistake, these powerhouse women are rooting for you!
• Begin a gratitude journal. One way to remain humble is to recognize our blessings and say thank you to the One who gave them to us.
• Seek out and surround yourself with a sisterhood of women who display qualities that you admire. There is nothing like linking arms with other women who share your faith, where iron sharpens iron, and where we, as sisters, shepherd each other through the narrow gate. Walking with Purpose offers just such a place to link arms and journey with your sisters in Christ. Find a parish program near you to join a WWP community.

St. Joan of Arc knew there was an army of men that stood against her. Our Blessed Mother bore witness to those who stood against her Son and endured the actions taken to stop Him. Let us stand tall in the knowledge, sister, that we also face a battle; we also face an army against us in the world today. Take heart, we are not alone. Alongside warrior women such as the Blessed Mother and St. Joan of Arc, let us grow in humble confidence. Let us ask Our Lord to fill our hearts with the grace of humility and the confidence to see ourselves through His eyes. Let us display full trust that the Lord will show up for us. And then, let us stand together.

[1] “Confidence,” Dictionary.com, 2021, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/confidence (24 May 2021).
[2] Lisa Brenninkmeyer, Discovering Our Dignity: A Study of Women of the Bible (Walking with Purpose, 2019), 216.
[3] Ibid., 298.

Ever since I dropped some packages off at the post office and the postal worker handed me a receipt for $6.66, and I looked at him and him at me, until finally he said, “I didn’t want to say it out loud” and I said, “Well, I am mailing religious books, so take that Satan!”...well, ever since then, things have gone incredibly awry. I will spare you all the horrible details that fell somewhere between the $600 cat surgery and the dead guinea pig, but let’s just say that I must be doing something right because someone down there is not happy.

Being a soldier of Christ Jesus is not for the faint of heart, my friends. Some days I wish I had chosen to become a soldier of anything else...like a soldier of lattes...or manicures…or sleep.

Sitting at my desk while trying to fight off all of the useless questions we like to ask God in times of suffering, questions like, “Why?” and “How long?”, I pulled up the first video for the Living in the Father’s Love Bible study, The Beauty Of A Childlike Faith. In this video, Lisa Brenninkmeyer lists three childlike qualities that God desires to see in each of us. I was most drawn to the second: Having confidence in God, trusting that only He can do what we cannot.

So, let me ask. Do you? Do you trust that He is in control? Are you confident that He has a good plan for you? When the ground is falling out from beneath your feet, do you trust that God knows what He is doing?

I’d like to think I have a firm trust in the Lord. I’d like to say that my confidence is not in myself but all in Him. But then...the cat’s ear blows up and I find the guinea pig hard as a rock and everything starts to crumble around me, and well, suddenly the obedient Christian life is not looking like such a great fit for me! 

Have you ever felt this way?

Have you ever gotten to the end of your resources?

Have you ever looked at the path the Lord kept calling you to walk down and thought to yourself, “Good grief, Jesus, can I please get a new path? Or at least a scooter?”

Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you pray, how dedicated you are to being a servant of God, you are the one who continues to draw the short stick?

It is hard to have a childlike faith in the midst of the battle. Staying confident when the storms of life seem to pound and pound to no avail can feel unrealistic and impossible. And as I found myself in this place of doubt, I recognized that unless I physically move, I will remain spiritually stuck. So I took a walk down a long paved path, praying the sorrowful mysteries each step of the way. And I asked the Lord to please conform my will to His. I begged that He remove the doubt and desire to self-rely, and that I would have a firm trust in Him no matter the outcome; that I would still love Him just as much as I do on the mountain top as I do in the desert. That should He say “no” to my prayer, I would continue to say “yes” to whatever He chooses, out of love for Him. 

Because here is the thing. When God chooses, He chooses from an eternal perspective. And I can’t even begin to pretend that I know how to wrap my head around that. But I have just enough faith, sprinkled with a good amount of grace, to know that this is a leap worth taking. A true and free gift from God. I am able to accept this; that He has the bigger picture. Not me. And if He does not give me what I ask for, it must be for my good. That this very cross I want to lose is actually my bridge to Heaven. And as hard as this can be to understand, I simply do. Because if this isn’t true, well then, none of it is.

As I neared the end of the path, a vision of Simon of Cyrene came to mind. Simon was the man compelled by the Romans to help carry the cross of Jesus. He was pulled from the sidelines observing, and took action by positioning himself under the cross with Jesus leading the way. I’ve heard many a reflection on this encounter—usually pointing to the theme of discipleship, stewardship, and helping others carry their burden. But, for the first time, a different image came to mind. This time it was not Jesus asking me to go out and help carry the load of another, but very specifically, He was inviting me to help carry His. How could I not step in and help Jesus carry what was meant for me? How could I not suffer under the weight of my cross when He already did? How could I not offer to share in the suffering when I am the one who caused it in the first place? This image completely changed my perspective. What looked impossible to carry only moments ago now looked like a gift. A walk that began in anxiety and doubt was now completed in confidence.

If your confidence in yourself is stronger than your confidence in God, ask yourself: What path of obedience is God calling me to that I am afraid of? Then offer up your need to understand. Say, “Here you go, Jesus. Here is my heart. It is weak and it is imperfect, and sometimes, it is as hard as my dead guinea pig. But here ya’ go, it is all yours.” Make no mistake. This is not giving up hope. This is saying, “I love you so much that I am willing to say “yes” to whatever you choose because you choose from an eternal perspective, and you always choose what is good.” This is how we become like children. This is how we remain confident when the storms of life rock the boat. This is how, compelled by love, we get off the sidelines and take action, positioning ourselves under the cross and walking the path of obedience with Jesus leading the way.

—Laura