It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us. While our article pages and Voice of Courage Facebook have been a bit still since January, we’ve been deep at work in the intricate layers of our leadership dreams for you, our Voice of Courage community.

As I think about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen develop in our hearts, minds, and conversations in the recent months, I think of bees and beehives.

The deep currents of life, where my leadership is heading and how it’s transforming, is often like a beehive. Sometimes the noise of my feet running in the field and the beauty of spring blossoms drown out the gentle hum of activity that’s just barely hidden from view but so vitally important.

Sometimes I want to just stay on the surface, enjoying those vibrant wildflower colors when I’m really called to be like a bee: taking samples of the blossoms, the gorgeous lives of women dreamers, creatives and leaders around me. I collect insights, cherish stories, take note of themes, and store these samples away for a day soon to come.

Honey Blends and Heart Cries

Like the array of honey blends I find at a farmer’s market—orange blossom, blackberry, sage, wildflower—which each reflect the environments of the bees and the seasons they have weathered, the visions I have for the world, my community, and especially the women of all ages around me, reflect both the continual whispers of God and the needs, dreams, and heart longings others have confided over coffee, dinners, walks, workouts, small groups, phone calls, and play dates.

Where are you gathering samples of blossoms around you? What blends and flavors are coming forward? Maybe it isn’t sage or blackberry, but maybe it’s something like: “hope in despair,” “let us be heard,” “invited,” “gathering in to let the generations and gifts find their place in community,” or a question like “what defines my identity?”

These are just a few of the beautiful honey-blend heart-cries my leadership heart has been storing up and sorting inside.

Honeycomb Harvests

Just like the drawers of a beehive become full of honeycomb, so do our leadership souls. We gather, reflect, become stirred up by the Spirit with a need to do something about what we’ve seen or heard, and, if we’re brave, we pull that section out of the hive and harvest it. We take what’s been stored from samples of dreams, longings, cries for justice, hope, truth, and reconciliation and we reach out to others who will join with us. Together, we do something with the honeycomb that God uses to heal and nourish the world in some tangible way.

What part of the hive within your heart is ready to be harvested and shared?

How will you take the next step to prepare and offer that honeycomb to the world?

Perhaps you need to cultivate the honey a bit more inside your heart, ready the words, talk with a friend, or prepare to reach out where your voice and action can make a difference for a community or population you’re appointed to reach. Begin where you are. Join with at least one other person in your process. There is a purpose and a time to share honeycomb that’s forming inside you.

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Sarah Bond and Jan Kern write, speak, coach, and gather women in order to create spaces to put our ear to the ground, hear the hum of the beehives inside our hearts, and cultivate the honey of our dreams so they are ready to share with and nourish the world around us.

Contact us to find out more about our coaching, speaking, and upcoming retreats and cohort opportunities or, if you desire, book a complementary discovery call (which form would this be?) with Jan or Sarah to find out how you can develop and express the dreams that are welling up inside you.