Category Archives: Cyndy @ Capturing Courage

As founding and executive director at Capturing Courage Int’l, Cyndy shares her own journey’s through life and ministry. You can also find her at cyndylavoie.com

Going Places

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P1320123 compressedShe was attending the third day of Pastor Training. I’d been staying at her home for a few days already.

My first night in her home didn’t feel safe to me. There seemed to be dark forces at work, an authority of sorts to muck with my sleep and that hovered over the home.

My first morning, upon wakening, my conversation with the Lord was about how unsafe I felt, and that I really wasn’t sure I was to stay there.

I’d over the previous years become very attuned to when I was covered and hidden in the Lord and when I was not. The ‘not covered’ moments were becoming few and far between, and so when I sensed a compromised covering I would notice right away.

As I prayed about it though I very clearly sensed the Lord saying, “I want you to stay here. I want the blessing that you bring with you to rest on this home.”

I was reminded it was not about me. That my presence in that country was about something much bigger than me. So I settled into staying.

When my key contact came to pick me up that morning, I let him know how it had all felt, and suggested that he and I pray together for a spiritual safety in the home.

This we did, and in the midst of our conversation he realized that the first home I had stayed in they had in fact prayed and covered it before I came, this home they had not.

So we prayed together and everything was fine after that.

And now I was a few days later at the Pastors Conference with my host lady in attendance.

I shared that day some of my own struggles through life. The disillusionment and the heartache and loss, and yet how I had found through it all that God was a profound ally.

Something powerful happens when we are transparent and when we risk to tell our stories. Though they feel ultra personal, and of course they are, they are also something to be invested in the kingdom of God and in the lives of those we serve.

That evening over dinner, as my host lady and I ate together, she confided to me her own very difficult journey, of the immense heartaches and loss and of her bitterness to God that she could not quite shrug off.

It was a connection of like hearts and minds in many ways. We became friends that day. I prayed for her and declared the peace and blessing over her and her home that the Lord had already told me was his intention.

Three months later I was back again. And the tenor of the home and its inhabitants was markedly changed. There was joy and laughter and hope there now.

I mentioned this to her, and she said ‘yes’ it was much different. To me it was like I was in a very different place.

This is the power of God. In God’s intention we are well kept.

I don’t all the way get this blessing of God through our presence. When I think of myself in terms of the blessing of presence, of just being somewhere, I really don’t understand it. Yet I’ve had too many people speak to me of the impact of my presence to argue any more.

I’ve simply come to understand that when God chooses to work a certain way through us, we can either come alongside and do our part, or we can keep arguing and in the long run, miss out on so much.

Thing is, it really is not about us.

It’s about those we serve.

I don’t know about you. I don’t know the unique impact that you make on the world. But I do know that if others are commenting on how you effect them, if God is calling you to invest your life in a particular way, that you probably want to pay attention, trust those words and observations, and seek to do even more of that.

Self devaluing never benefited anyone.

My other host home in another village some 200km away has experienced the same blessing from what I can tell. From the time of my first stay to my third stay some six months later, the woman of the home planted a banana field, added doors to the interior of her home, plastered the inside of her home, and added a significant  addition onto one of her outside buildings.

I don’t know if this was normal per se, she is a widow and so struggles along in many ways, and yet I saw marked progress and improvement in her standard of living in the time I’d been there.

Was this God through me? I won’t ever really know. But this I do know. That if I am to bring the blessing of God with me as I go places, then I’d better be going places.

What about you?

A New Normal

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the glory of GodIt is a sunshiny day on the west coast of Canada. Something that we do not always have, so when we do we must comment on it!

There are a lot of things going through my heart and mind this morning. The communications have been many this week from various parts of the world. I’ve still to respond to a gentleman from India today.

Playing on the world stage is interesting to say the least. I always knew I wanted a bigger sand-box to play in, and it appears that I’m in it.

But like with any game the bigger the stage the different our thinking must be. My own thinking has gone through many shifts. Once afraid and suspicious of many things today I am simply worn out by the fear of others. There simply is not time or space for fear.

There are things we leave behind any time we step out beyond our normal. Ways of thinking, the lenses by which we see the world, the expectations we carry with us.

Sometimes I have no idea how I have moved beyond the person I once was, yet move I have, glory be to God!

All this to say, if you are wanting to live and play a bigger game, work hard on your paradigms and the lenses by which you see the world.

Different lenses, different world.

No matter what change you might be looking for, it can only come about by you changing your thinking, by you shedding your fears, and by you doing the hard inner work to stretch farther than you ever imagined possible.

Thing is though, your new normal is just waiting for you. Will you take hold?

Don’t Let the Bed-Bugs Bite

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time to say 'no'

Spiritual Authority rather is the influence that we carry within us to make a difference in this world and in the lives of others. It is the assignment or calling that would have us entering into something bigger than ourselves.

Spiritual Authority rests on the knowing of our position in Jesus, it is about confidence of who God is and who we are made to be. But let me tell you a story.

I was in Uganda for almost another week. Visiting another area found me in yet another beautiful woman’s home. Nice space, good bed, hospitality and gracious warmth, all wrapped around me in comfort.

Until I woke in the middle of the second night to find numerous bedbugs. On the bed and on my mosquito netting both inside and out.

So with my flashlight and my kleenex (I’m really glad I had experience with lice years earlier, it somehow prepared me) I scringed them all in my tissues. And then tried to go back to sleep.

This continued for the nights I remained there. I tried all sorts of things. I laid a mat I had been given on top of my mattress. I then tucked my mosquito netting under the mat (as opposed to around the edges of the bed), then laid myself on top of the mat. This set-up made a figure 8 of sorts that they would have to navigate in order to get to me.

Well, navigate it they did. Bed-bugs are smart. We settled into a routine of sorts. Sleep fitfully, wake up to dispose of bed bugs, sleep fitfully, then wake to dispose of more, each night until morning came.

Long story short, I made it out alive (and lived to tell about it), and managed to not bring one bed-bug home with me. Phew!

Three months later and I am heading to Uganda again. To the same home. For three weeks this time.

Back to the bed-bugs.

But the Lord had been speaking more and more to me about my spiritual authority. My confidence was increasing all the time, and the anointing and level of authority had been increased as well.

And we were praying. My prayer team and I silenced those bed-bugs all the way from Canada, weeks before I was to be there again.

We really didn’t know what we were doing per se. We just prayed a bit.

Upon my arrival in Uganda and settling straight away into this same home and same bed found me that first night setting the stage.

I got into bed and spoke out loud, “I declare myself covered in the name and the blood of my Lord Jesus Christ, and say to all bed-bugs ‘be still’ – insert praying in tongues here- Amen.”

No bedbugs. Days went by, a few weeks went by. Not one bedbug.

I was thinking, wow that is amazing. What did they do? How did they get rid of them?

We all know how impossible it is to get rid of bedbugs.

Until one night that I was woken in a nightmare and demonic attack. Three times I was woken, and the third time there were three bedbugs. One I had flicked off myself, killing it as I severed its head from its body, and two others clinging on the inside of my mosquito netting.

(sorry for the graphic detail)

There lay the one dead one, and there were the two on the netting, and I simply spoke to them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that they were to ‘be still’ (meaning not to get to me) and simply went back to sleep.

I never saw them again.

In all of this, the only element that changed from trip one to trip two was the power of prayer and the increased confidence that I carried, knowing that I could command these critters and they had to listen.

Not because of me, but because of who my God is.

And it made all the difference.

This is spiritual authority. Knowing who God is, understanding that ‘he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world’ and with the confidence to stand in that truth, to declare from that truth, and to rest in that truth.

Now imagine this same knowing, this same confidence, this same declaration made on behalf of the broken hearted. Imagine this same advocated for those who have no voice. Imagine angels released to heal, hope infused in the hopeless, freedom where before there was bondage. Imagine.

This is spiritual authority. It is first the place where we meet the living God ourselves. We find sufficiency and grace and healing and love and hope. We find confidence and our voice.

And then we bring this knowing to bear upon this world. We learn to advocate the love of God on behalf of others in powerful and effective ways. This is Spiritual Authority at its best. And this is what I am teaching.

To the bed-bugs, and to everything else that has ever gone wrong in this world, we say, “You will NOT bite. Your authority is cancelled here.”

God reigns.

Capturing Courage @ Love Global

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love globalWe are glad to announce that Capturing Courage is now in collaboration with Love Global.

What this means is that all donations (from within Canada) put through Love Global will receive a charitable receipt that you can claim on your taxes.

It also makes donating easier than ever. With one time gifts or as routine monthly gifts, via credit or check, your donating is streamlined.

This collaboration also partners with Love Global towards their (and our) main priority of supporting Indigenous Pastors and Missionaries around the world with fundraising support and coaching as well as story-telling tools such as cameras and computers and such.

We are simply glad and thankful for Love Global!

You can find us at Love Global HERE

Take the time to look around. Notice that you can become a Champion for us, helping to fundraise and support the work of Capturing Courage by passing on what we do to your friends and family.

Just this week we have received yet another new invitation, this time to Ghana.

We are not rushing to go anywhere, but are simply waiting on the Lord and the right timing and direction for where we are going next.

And a big part of those plans is of course the funds necessary. Your donation makes a difference.

Blotter Paper

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pondsA favorite book is the true story of a couple heading into BC’s Chilcotin area in the 1930’s. There had been rampant trapping of the beaver in the early 1900’s and the Chilcotin was no different. In fact, there were no beavers left in that vast area.

What had once been a thriving land was dying of thirst.

Without the beaver to build and maintain their dams pond after pond dried up. Certainly the rains came as usual but without structure in place to ‘catch’ those rains they galloped down the hillside.

Farmers on the lower levels had to deal with either flooding or drought, and on the upper reaches cattle trying to reach water, would enter the boggy remnants of ponds, get mired down and would die.

What had once been fresh healthy water-ways and reservoirs had become cesspools of death and decay.

The beaver dams helped to hold back the waters in each pond, to create generous aquatic life and wildlife that flourished. Without ponds (lakes really) and their grasses there were no mink or otter. The larger animals of moose and bear went elsewhere.

The infrastructure of health and well-being had been disrupted. And it took some 20 years for the beaver and health of the land to be established once more through the determined and unending efforts of a man, his wife and son.

Like any come-back tale what took the longest time was the permeation of enough water back into the peaty bottom of the ponds. Before water could run from one pond to another pond and to yet another pond and ultimately to the farmers canals and irrigation ditches far downstream, it was necessary to drench the ‘blotter-paper’ so to speak, at the bottom of each pond.

Once the bottom of each pond was saturated, only then could the water level rise to a height that supported beaver and fish and all good things.

This then was the goal of each pond throughout the entire waterway. Shore up the leakage at the end of each pond, maintain the dams by hand for long enough until the waters began to fill back in, and until there was enough for beavers to return.

It is an amazing story of commitment and perseverance and of dogged determination and of a solid plan worked out day by day over years and years until success came.

I tell this story because it is such a picture of our lives and of our organizations and business’.

The ‘ponds’ of our lives, the elements of healthy living, the eco-structure required to get on with business is all a finely tuned interplay between its parts.

Leave one part to dry up, leave one dam to decay and destruction is the result.

Personally I am still in this process. The ‘ponds’ of my life and the chaos that reigned on various levels is still in process of being fixed, healed you might say.

But like anything here at Capturing Courage we take back the land of our lives day by day, task by task, relationship by relationship. With dogged focus and a good solid plan, anything can be rebuilt.

Anything can be built.

Our Capturing Courage team spent a weekend away together; looking at the year gone by and all of its movements and parts, and looking ahead at all of what is to come.

We are establishing our ponds, building our dams, shoring up the flow, establishing the run-off, with green things growing and life on all sides and are simply thankful.

I wonder what the ponds of our lives represent most? If you had five ponds that inter-played and depended on each other and upon which the health of your entire life rested, what might they be?

Join Us for Tribal Thinking

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333 compressedA number of us gathered last week for Success to Significance. It was a good time.

Not only did we find fellowship and warm food and drink out of the stormy rainy evening, but we took a look at what are the keys to success and what are the distinctions of significance.

We learned that significance comes from inside us and our experience of how we live in the world, the choices we make and the manner in which we show up.

And I’m already looking ahead at next month’s Cyndy’s Speaking Series.

Our topic for February 12th is Tribal Thinking.

The book Tribal Leadership is the impetus for this evenings discussion. Having read Tribal Leadership a couple of years ago, it was a life-changing read. My own understanding of much of what I was encountering and experiencing made perfect sense after reading this book.

I am excited to pass on the basic premise of this book and to then explore the ramifications of Tribal Thinking and how all of us are affected by this every single day.

Part of my excitement is that the findings that led to this book directly line up with all of the training that I have received as a coach, specifically in regards to the power of language in and over our lives.

Did you know that your language reveals your ‘tribe’, the basic premise and world-view and paradigms by which you are doing life?

Did you also know that through language you can transform the basic premise and world-view and paradigms by which you are doing life?

Simply put, change our thinking, change our language, and we change our lives.

This in a nutshell is what I’m presenting February 12th. We would love to have you join us!

Mark it on your calendar. It may seem a ways off, but it is closer than we think!

time and place

Come with a friend, we will be having a door-prize of my newest book, Thoughts – Taking One Day at a Time.

Good food and great people plus powerful thoughts equals an evening you don’t want to miss!

Any questions don’t hesitate to Contact Me

See you there!

Forced Sabbaticals

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283 compressedThere is incredible power in sabbaticals. Those times and spaces where the doing is lessened and the being is increased always reaps grand rewards.

This week I’ve been on a forced sabbatical in a sense. I’ve been sick and just not up to snuff and so certainly haven’t accomplished most of what I was hoping to get to.

While I’ve been frustrated and sad through it, playing in the back of my mind is the knowledge of the power of fasting and of Sabbaths. And in an odd way I am glad for this lack of ability, for I know it is setting 2013 up with an investment of less, which always leads to more.

Let me explain, (for I am sure that sounds like gobble-gook).

It is really the power of fasting that is in play. That up-side down law of life that when we are weak God is strong, when we pause and rest in him he shows up, and when we invest in constraint the whole world opens up to us.

Under the tangible of fasting lies the intangible of faith and trust.

Fasting brings us to our knees. Literally speaking fasting is hard work. We find out loud and clear the nature of our humanity and the limitations of our spirit when we fast.

In fasting we are brought low and God is exalted.

In fasting we admit our limitation and acknowledge God’s omnipotence.

Fasting harnesses our less and coupled with God’s most, amazing things abound.

It is the same habit as that of taking a Sabbath. In pausing to rest for one day a week we state in word and deed that we are trusting our livelihood to God. That though the work never ends, though there is always something that must be attended to, we will pause for one day and worship, and trust, and rest.

A Sabbath is simply the power of fasting brought into our work week and our responsibilities.

Sabbaticals are extensions of the same.

Twice through my own last dozen years I had two (complete and separate from each other) years in which I did no ministry, was on no boards, and contributed to community in no way whatsoever.

They were very hard years. They felt like vacuums in my existence. In the midst of such things we wonder if we will ever be useful again.

And yet in the midst we find ourselves. We make friends with self. Being takes the upper hand. Our doing is transformed. Rather than a constant bid to fill the holes in our hearts, doing comes from a much cleaner and purer place once we need not do.

I am convinced that unless we are free to ‘not do’ to ‘not be involved’ to ‘not minister’ that we aren’t really free to minister.

It is far too easy growing up in church and community life to think who we are revolves around ministering. What if it doesn’t? What if who you are revolves around a much deeper relationship based on God’s simple masterpiece of you?

Fasting gets us in touch with this. Fasting, be it from food or tv or makeup or jewelry or chocolate or caffeine or ministry or hobbies (all of which I have fasted as led), brings us back to us and God.

It’s a scary place. And a profoundly powerful place.

It’s why though I’m sick and sick of it, I understand that in my weakness there are powerful things afoot. I trust the bigger picture to a much bigger plan and my life is simply one small piece.

Somehow sickness and sabbaticals and Sabbaths and fasting sets all this back in proper order.

It is simply the place from which all life springs.

The New Normal

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cyndy compressed andIn less than a weeks time I am speaking on Success to Significance. I’ll be leading a conversation that explores the question, “What are the characteristics of a life that satisfies?”

In preparation I’ve been making my list and have narrowed it down to five characteristics found in those living a sense of significance.

One is about alignment with our creator.

Two of the five are about establishing our identity and of reckoning our lives thus far.

Another two are about moving forward and leveraging everything we’ve experienced into forward motion.

We start with experience because it is the one thing that no one can take from you. Same as belief and conviction, experience is what prepares us for tomorrow.

And whether good, bad, or ugly, your experience is in fact your resume upon which satisfaction rests.

It’s not about getting away from ‘that’. It’s about something much more powerful. I’ll show you how.

The conversation of identity comes close on the heels.

The thing with identity is that once established we are solid. The ground on which we walk may rattle to-and-fro from time to time, but it won’t affect our stride.

Imagine if establishing identity is as easy as asking yourself, “What make me glad?”

There are of course markers all along our lives of our purpose and our gifting and that thing which makes us glad. I’ll be showing you how to identify those.

Finally, alignment with our Creator brings us to the core of permission and invitation.

Alignment cuts through our presupposed manners of being that depend on lies and curses for existence.

Quite simply, who does God say you are?

Significance: Where the ordinary becomes extraordinary and where the extraordinary becomes ordinary.

The new normal.

…………………….

Full Info is HERE

Thoughts – Taking One Day at a Time

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Cyndy's Latest Book

“The first time I met Cyndy I knew there was something special about her; she has a graceful presence that emanates her love of God and humanity.   Every morning for the past year I have eagerly checked my email to be inspired by the “thought of the day” and I am simply delighted that they are available for all in print form.

This book is an outpouring of what is close to her heart: not just a collection of her daily thoughts but a series of careful meditations within the soul. Each page presents an encouraging and insightful glimpse into Cyndy’s personal journey of discovery. Many of these ideas are forward-thinking and challenge the very nature of our lifestyle. With life’s ever increasing speed, these thoughts act as a gentle prompt for us to dedicate time just to think. It is in these rare moments of processing that we often realize what matters most to us, and then recognize that we’ve been completely preoccupied with something less important.

I have known Cyndy for a few years now, and every time we meet she just makes me want to be a better person. After reading this book, I’m sure you will feel the same.”

Lynn Matson,  Consultant

A Re-Birthing

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light of the worldIt amazes me how much time is needed to find ourselves.

As I write this I am sitting at my dining table on a quiet Sunday morning. Outside the wind is blowing and the rain is falling. It is cold and wintry.

Inside the fireplace is on, a few candles are lit and I’ve a cup of tea beside me.

Pure bliss I say.

This time last year I was in Uganda, and so it feels that this transition of fall into winter is a new fresh wonder.

I am loving the smell of the air when I go outside. The crisp tang is invigorating and in contrast the soft lights of inside warm me through and through.

I’ve been relishing in all of it these last weeks, thinking the delight in it is just because I missed it last year.

But upon further contemplation and a real ‘listening’ to my inner being I realize that something much bigger and deeper is going on.

Just over three years ago I stepped away from my very chaotic marriage. At the time I intuitively knew that I would need five years to recuperate so to speak, and so I settled in my mind and life that goal of five years.

It’s been just over three years now and things within me are still coming back to life.

You see, chaos is a thief. It robs us blind of our very heart and soul.

The strongest fibers of our life’s weave are mightily attacked, things we were once naturally good at are destroyed and in that process we forget our passions and the deep yet simple gladness of being.

For me it shows up in the little things. Sure I may be writing books and creating education and building people in various places. But these things are the easy things for me. I’ve always been about the odd and the extravagant.

The chaos attacked in me the simple things and the undercurrents of a ‘normal’ life. For instance, in chaos I lost my ability to make a meal. Chaos destroyed my pride of a clean home and the energy required to keep it so.

Chaos robbed me of simple hospitality and that easy place of having company for dinner. And through the years I lost the gentle expectation of holidays and the celebration around them.

Chaos made celebration a chore.

But this year, this fall season, there is fresh momentum as it continues to come back to me.

The cooking has been returning for over a year now. Bit by bit a desire to make this dish or to create that meal comes to my heart and soul and as I watch myself set about to cook I wonder at the birthing of my old self.

I’m three years past deliberately stepping out of chaos yet it is only in the last couple of months that it feels chaos is truly out the door.

For the thing with chaos is, it follows us. We gave it permission after all. Invited it, mentored it, soothed it, gave it all our time and attention and basically said by action, ‘Sure you can stay.’

It has taken some years to undo all that. It has been an uphill battle all the way.

It is why I am so tickled pink at the holy giddy hush pervading my soul as we gear up to Christmas. I am experiencing within myself that deep gladness of peace and celebration, of contentment and satisfaction that, if I peer back through the curtains of my past, I recognize in myself some twenty years ago.

I am coming back to life again.

Does it ever feel amazing.

So while I knew I needed five years I wouldn’t have even been able to say what exactly those five years were for. The scales and the weights needed to drop off for sure, but what really would be the new, what would replace that yuck? This I couldn’t have named.

Standing back and watching my own life is an interesting thing. The working of the Lord through all my parts is amazing. And so to is this re-birthing.

If I’ve learned nothing else it is this. Take the time to find ourselves. When the core of who we are has been lost in the mix, invest in the months and years needed to reclaim old strengths and fresh vision.

Walking deliberately and intentionally always reaps its own rewards.

It won’t be time lost.

Action

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time to say 'no'What constitutes action?

A query that has been running in the back of my mind for some time now.

I am a person of action. At least I like to think I am.

I am also a person that enjoys all things relationships, and this means the interactions via the web. With twitter and facebook and blogging leading me to many that I would not have otherwise known, these mediums are a definitive gift to our time.

Except for one thing:

False actions.

It is all too easy to post a picture, write a blog, share a quote, and think we have done something.

But like a video game where battles won give false bravo and false accomplishment, so to does posting online, give an impression that often has little real substance behind the posting.

I have observed that there are those who post amazing pictures and quotes but have a life that in no way reflects what they are posting. And while this is the very few (on my wall), it worries me.

In the wake of Amanda Todd’s death, I am brought face to face once more with this need for action. A need for something tangible and real, in terms of bullying and so much more.

Action, is what i needed. And from where I sit, that means in our own lives first and foremost.

Bullying is insidious. And wearing a pink shirt ‘in memory of’ won’t stop it.

I know, because I’ve lived with bullying.

And I know, because the action required to stop bullying is gargantuan.

I left my marriage in order to remove myself and my children from bullying.

I left my church when their bullying proved no different than what was in my marriage.

I stay out of relationships that in any way smack of bullying.

Where others are made to feel small, it is not okay.

There comes a time when we must break fellowship with those who bully. When words (or wearing pink shirts) makes no difference, we stand up, we take action, we make changes, we say ‘no more’.

Not by words, because when words lose their effect, we go with action.

We take strong stands. We toss our lives and everything we know to the wind to make a statement of ‘no more’.

I’ve lost friends, I’ve lost the respect of others, I’ve been misunderstood and maligned because I simply would not be bullied any longer. Simply because I was not going to allow the insidious patterns of bullying to continue to my grandchildren, to the next generation.

Bullying is rife throughout our entire population and culture. It is not just a teen thing. Where do we, after all, think they learned it?

It is in our churches, it is in our families, it is in our nice little gatherings. It is in our leadership at youth events, it is in our schools, our nice little bible studies, and in our conversations.

And the ONLY way to make a difference, is to take action, to make changes, to order our lives around something that is better and stronger and purer.

Posting nice sayings, beautiful pictures, and wearing pink, won’t do it.

This is all-out war.

So, where will you make a change today? What conversation will you have with the bully in your circle of friends and family? And in light of the result of that conversation, what action are you prepared to take if necessary?

Action, profound life changing, earth rattling action, your and my world upside down action, is the only thing, that will make a difference.

So, are we really ready to eradicate bullying?