Dawn of Valor

In this episode, I share what God has been showing me about holiness and how my view of it is changing.More and more, holiness is not feeling dull, lifeless, or restrictive to me. It is starting to feel beautiful.To be holy is to be set apart for God. To belong to Him. To reflect His character more clearly in every area of life.And I’m realizing that holiness is not God calling us to become blank, colorless people. He is not making us less ourselves. He is making us into what we were always meant to be: lives that bear His image well.I talk about how this shift feels similar to the way my understanding of heaven changed as I got older. What once felt flat and sterile has become, through Scripture, something far richer, fuller, weightier, and more alive. Holiness is beginning to feel that way too.Not stale. Not small. Not merely behavior modification.But a real shaping. A sanctifying. A making fit for the Master’s use.  I also share an update about a home we looked at this week, and why it was not the right fit.If I’m honest, I do not even know how we would get approved for a mortgage right now or how any of that would come together. But even in that, I found myself wondering if maybe the Lord is being kind to me.Maybe He is preparing me for the weight of the glory of home, so that home itself will not become my identity, my source of joy, or my reason for existing.Maybe some things are not withheld because God is cruel.Maybe they are withheld because He is merciful.Because weight reveals what is underneath. And God, in His kindness, prepares us before He places more on us.  In this episode: why my view of holiness is changing  how holiness is starting to feel beautiful, freeing, and full of life  why holiness is not the same thing as legalism  how God sanctifies what He saves  why the Lord often prepares us before He gives us more  a personal update on the home we looked at this week  why I think even that disappointment may be mercy 📖 Scripture referenced 1 Peter 1:15–16 Romans 8:18 Romans 8:29 John 15💛 Support this work https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt🧵 Join the writing / become a paid subscriber https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/📷 Our photo + video team https://dawnphotoco.com/🌐 More about me www.mikayladawn.com📬 Contact [email protected]🎧 Subscribe on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Substack

Two weeks after my last recording, I sat down on 3/27 to share this episode. That date holds deep meaning for me, and this episode became a marker of God’s mercy in the middle of intense spiritual warfare.I share about the frightening events our family walked through on 3/22, the mental and emotional crash that followed, and how the Lord used truth, prayer, and the renewing of my mind to help me fight differently this time.I also share what I’m learning right now about holiness: that to be holy is to be set apart for God, reflecting His character in every area of life. More and more, holiness is not feeling dull or restrictive to me, but beautiful, freeing, and full of life.In this episode: why 3/27 feels significant to me  the very obvious spiritual warfare our family faced last week  how studying the battlefield of the mind helped prepare me why holiness is beginning to feel beautiful, not burdensome  how creativity, beauty, and obedience can all reflect God’s character 📖 Scripture referenced John 3:27- A man may receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.💛 Support this work https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt🧵 Join the writing / become a paid subscriber https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/📷 Our photo + video team https://dawnphotoco.com/🌐 More about me www.mikayladawn.com📬 Contact [email protected]🎧 Subscribe on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Substack

For the first time, I’m playing the audio from the day Justice and I were baptized at church. You’ll hear my testimony and baptism first, and then Justice shares his testimony in his own words.Justice has never really had a platform. This is the first time his story has been shared publicly. It felt like such a gift to be able to include it here.This episode also marks the beginning of something new.Two weeks ago I finally sat down with our neighbor and landlord, Linda Cross. When we moved here, I had no idea she teaches the Bible every week to women in Spanish across Argentina and Chile. When I asked if I could see her curriculum, I realized it was exactly what my heart has been hungry to learn.The very first lesson begins with a truth that feels simple but profound: The battle is first won or lost in the mind. Sow a thought. Reap an action. Sow an action. Reap a habit. Sow a habit. Reap a character. Sow a character. Reap a destiny.From there we begin learning how real change actually happens.Not by trying harder to fix behavior.But by tracing the fruit in our lives back to the root of what we believe about God.In this episode I share the framework I’m learning:Fruit: the visible behavior in our livesTrunk: the desires driving those behaviorsRoot: the belief about God underneath it allFor example, my anxiety about provision might look like striving or fear on the surface. But if you follow it down to the root, it can reveal something deeper: unbelief that God will truly provide.Transformation isn’t cutting a weed at ground level.It’s uprooting the lie, repenting of unbelief, and replacing it with the truth of Scripture. We are TRANSFORMED by the renewing of our MIND.Watch the BaptismsYou can watch the baptisms from our church service here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEzIufDFveo&t=1977s(((Our baptisms begin around minute 24 of the service.)))📖 Scripture referenced Matthew 6:26 Romans 12:2💛 Support this work https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt🧵 Join the writing / become a paid subscriber https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/📷 Our photo + video team https://dawnphotoco.com/🌐 More about me www.mikayladawn.com📬 Contact [email protected]🎧 Subscribe on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Substack

It has been one month and twelve days into the new year. And five months since we left home.In this episode, I share what the Lord has been doing in this season of life in a furnished rental, unfamiliar rhythms, and spiritual reorientation.This has not been a season of arrival. It has been a season of placement.A season of radical amputation.A season of integration into the Body.A season of learning the difference between provision and permanence.We talk about: my lack of a vision board this year and why Jesus’ call to radical amputation in Matthew 5:29–30, and our decision to give up alcohol this year Why God withholds lasting security, but gives joy along the way What themes of 'home' God keeps hammering into my soul, while withholding what I think 'home' is or should be. Starting Growth groups + Marriage and Family Class What Jeremiah 29 teaches about life and living while in exileScripture referenced:Matthew 5:29–30 Jeremiah 29:5–7C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”Listen + Follow Dawn of ValorSubstack: https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikayladawnchaparro/ Support the podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt

Recorded on New Year’s Eve. 2025 behind. 2026 ahead. A quiet closing of one year and an unsteady step into another.Simply a look back at what God has done and an honest look forward into what we still do not know yet.I read last year’s New Year’s Eve journal entry and compare it to today. The ways God has faithfully met us in both joy and ache. It is strange and sacred to hear myself one year ago and realize how much has changed even when life still feels raw and unfinished.Then we move into a Q&A. These are the real questions you asked. In this episode we talk about:How has your marriage changed since Justice has been saved? 🤍How does your faith stay centered in the unknown, especially in seasons of change and overwhelm?How do you keep faith in yourself and let God handle things? Any advice?In what ways has Jesus drawn near? Have you seen Him move in big ways?How has the move been on everyone?Was it a hard transition from warm weather to colder temperatures?Could you move back if you weren’t happy there?Best advice for moms trying to focus on God while juggling everything and feeling overwhelmed.Curious if you’ve figured anything out for Beckham.What do you hope for in the new year? ✨Thank you for being here.Support the work💛 Partner with our family and help us keep creating: https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt🧵 Join the story in writing. Become a paid subscriber: https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/📷 Our photo and video team: https://dawnphotoco.com/🌐 More about me: www.mikayladawn.com📬 Contact: [email protected]🎧 Listen and subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Substack

Recorded on December 10th, my 33rd birthday, after nearly two months of silence. This episode is anything but polished. It is not triumphant. Its just honest.I share what these last months have truly felt like beneath the surface: the homesickness, the continual pruning that does not pause, and the slow, unseen work of becoming a woman of valor in ways that look nothing like the epic transformation I once imagined.In this episode, I talk about:• What it has been like to live without any sense of home, stability, or familiarity • The strange comfort I find in walking Target just to feel something familiar • How the Lord seems to have removed even my natural sense of navigation as a living metaphor for how lost I truly am without Him • The difference between pruning and discipline, and how both are signs of being heirs with Christ • Why the Christian life feels so heavy: because glory itself is weighty • How perhaps this life is strength training for what is to come • Our recent Halloween and ThanksgivingWe are studying the “upside down” wisdom of Luke in Sunday school: how the Kingdom of God runs opposite of the world. It is one thing to know this. It is another thing to actually live it. I also read from:2 Corinthians 1:8–10 John 15, the Vine, the pruning, the abidingAnd I close with a liturgy from Every Moment Holy for inconsolable homesickness.This is not a story of arrival. This is the in between endurance. Of learning that self sacrifice is not weakness but power. That becoming may look like disappearing. And that God is preparing us for a glory that has weight.Thank you for walking with me through it.💛 Support our family and this work: https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt🧵 Join the story in writing and become a paid subscriber: https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/📷 Our photo and video team: https://dawnphotoco.com/🌐 More about me: www.mikayladawn.com📬 Contact: [email protected]🎧 Subscribe on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Substack

In this short and unfiltered episode, I talk about being thankful that God never changes—even when I do.Lately, I’ve felt jaded and foggy. I finally submitted my book proposal, but my heart has felt weak. My faith feels small, and I miss the girl I used to be—confident, funny, fully alive—yet back then, I was spiritually dead. Now I’m alive, but some days I feel dead.Justice mentioned that he senses something shifting, like a storm is brewing in a good way. He doesn’t usually say things like that, and it made me wonder what the Lord might be preparing.I also share a lighthearted moment: entering Darylan Denner’s giveaway with Ring Concierge and watching my comment take off. It made me smile, thinking how full-circle it would be to meet them since they gave to our GoFundMe after Valor died.And then there’s this thought I couldn’t shake—how God is the original interior designer. He brought order from chaos and gave such careful instruction about His dwelling place in the tabernacle. Maybe that’s why I care so deeply about my home and surroundings. Maybe I don’t need new things. Maybe I just need to create beauty with what I already have.This one’s more of a brain dump before I left for York to visit a friend—but maybe that’s exactly what it needed to be. God’s truth holds steady, even when our emotions don’t.Links & Ways to Support: 🌿 Buy Me a Coffee → https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt 📝 Substack → https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com 🌐 Website → https://www.mikayladawn.com 📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/mikayladawnchaparro/

Two weeks after my last recording, I sit down to share an update. It has been a mix of depression, anxiety about financial security, and wrestling with the unknown future.In this episode I talk about:The ways I have struggled with fear, sadness, and feeling fragile.How the church here has shown up for us, tangibly being the body of Christ.An update on the kids schooling option and why we decided to go with private educationThe unexpected gift of meeting new friends and being invited to dinner.Our big financial investment into our business and the weight of that step.Missing old friendships that felt like sisters, and longing for that depth again.The sanctifying work the Lord is doing in my heart through all of it.Links & Ways to Support: 🌿 Buy Me a Coffee → https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt 📝 Substack → https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/ 🌐 Website → https://www.mikayladawn.com 📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/mikayladawnchaparro/If you want me to answer any specific questions, or touch on any subjects, please feel free to email directly at [email protected]

Recorded 9/22. I walk through the last few weeks: closing on our house, the trip to Pennsylvania, and arriving while the world felt shaken. I share how I learned about Charlie Kirk’s assassination on the drive in, why I stepped back into silence, and how sickness and an emergency MRI left me physically crippled and emotionally raw. This episode is honest and quiet. I read from Hinds’ Feet on High Places and reflect on what it means to ask for valor and then be placed on a hill that makes growth painful. I end with a simple hope and anticipation for God to show up and make his strength known through my weakness that is so apparent right now.Links & Ways to Support:🌿 Buy Me a Coffee → https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt📝 Substack → https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/🌐 Website → https://www.mikayladawn.com📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/mikayladawnchaparro/

Yesterday, we sold basically everything we own. The long-prepared “surrender sale” finally happened, and today I am sitting here exhausted, tender, and raw—recording this episode in real time.I share stories from the sale, including Reverie’s crib, a woman who bought Valor's rocker and the piano for $1000 out of pure generosity. I open up about the grief and lament that follows this kind of surrender.In the middle of it all, I return to a piece of writing I penned weeks ago: a Bible study on Genesis 22, the story of Abraham and Isaac. I originally wrote it as part of an application for The Daily Grace Co., but today I believe the Lord had me write it for my own heart too.This episode is both weary and hopeful: a reminder that God’s character is trustworthy, even when obedience costs everything.Links & Ways to Support:🌿 Buy Me a Coffee → https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt📝 Substack → https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/🌐 Website → https://www.mikayladawn.com📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/mikayladawnchaparro/

In this week’s shorter and messy vulnerable episode I wanted to delete, I share what my husband’s recent trip to film the Leadville 100 in Colorado stirred in me about the Christian life. This week held so much weight for our family. Emma turned sixteen—the same age I was when I had her—and on the very day I recorded this, Justice officially adopted her. A moment of redemption and joy right in the middle of a season where we’ve felt tired, stretched thin, and in the midst of spiritual warfare.Just like those runners at Leadville, I’ve seen the beauty of the Body of Christ come alongside us—through disciplers, pastors, and friends who’ve carried us when we felt weak. Our surrender sale is only days away, and our move is less than two weeks out. Life feels messy and exhausting, but I wanted to share this word of encouragement in real time, even if it isn’t polished.Links & Ways to Support:🌿 Buy Me a Coffee → https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt📝 Substack → https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/🌐 Website → https://www.mikayladawn.com📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/mikayladawnchaparro/

In this week’s real-time “audio vlog,” I share the big and small moments marking our final weeks in Texas before uprooting our family and moving to Pennsylvania. It’s not pre-planned or polished — I jotted a few bullet points, but otherwise, consider it a coffee date with me… only I’m the one doing all the talking.In this episode, you’ll hear:How I got to meet the new owner of our home in person — and why it felt like such a personal kindness from the Lord.A wild, God-orchestrated story connecting us to our future landlord in Pennsylvania — a story so specific it could only be His doing.The childhood Bible I found while cleaning and packing from my 7th birthday, complete with a note from my dad — and how it reminded me that seeds we plant in our children’s lives matter, even if the harvest takes decades.The old Kia Telluride key I stumbled across — a symbol of one of the first quiet surrenders God asked of me before Valor’s death, and how He was already pruning and preparing me for bigger surrenders ahead.A short reflection on Acts, where Paul’s testimony didn’t convince the leaders… but the centurions and soldiers within earshot believed — a reminder that God may use us to reach people we never expected.My honest wrestle with the overwhelm, fear, sadness, and spiritual warfare that have surfaced as we walk in obedience.Church notes on Luke 9:23–27 about what it truly means to follow Jesus.- a scrappy version of what I learned from the sermon on Sunday.If you’re in a season of surrender, wondering what God is doing with the seeds you’ve sown or the losses you’ve endured, I pray this episode encourages you to trust the One who goes before you.Links & Ways to Support:🌿 Buy Me a Coffee → https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt📝 Substack → https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/🌐 Website → https://www.mikayladawn.com📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/mikayladawnchaparro/

This is the episode that makes sense of everything to come.We just sold our home in Texas. We’re about to sell everything we own and move to Pennsylvania without a clue what we’re doing. But this? This is the story behind the story.Inside this foundational episode, I share: — The loss of our son, Valor — The journey through grief, pruning, and surrender — The real-time steps of walking with God into unknown places — The moments that have begun shaping me into a woman of valorThis is raw. This is unfiltered. This is the honest beginning of what I pray becomes a lifeline for others standing on the edge of their own “what now?”📖 Scripture: John 15 — The Vine. The pruning. The abiding. The fruit to come.💛 Support this work:https://buymeacoffee.com/mikayladawt🧵 Join the story in writing/ become a paid sub:https://mikayladawnchaparro.substack.com/📷 Our photo + video team:https://dawnphotoco.com/🌐 More about me:www.mikayladawn.com📬 Contact:[email protected]🎧 Subscribe on:Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Substack