I'll Be Your Huckleberry

There are times in life, every once in a while, when I am overwhelmed by how blessed I am. These times also seem to come after great stress or trial. Once the dust has settled, and your foe lays vanquished at the other end of the square, you’re able to look around you and appreciate that you are still alive, that your enemy (at least metaphorically) is not, and that most of the people watching gave you the courage to walk out there, draw your gun, and fight. Life is a battle, and anyone who believes otherwise obviously hasn’t left their house.

Your enemy could be almost anything: a negative thought or feeling, an ex-boyfriend, your own pride and hubris, a divorce, something you want but know you shouldn’t have, losing your job, losing a loved one. If you don’t fight, these things will eat you alive. They will take you down. They will go for the gut. You will fall, and you will not get up again.

Sometimes these fights are like a shoot-out in an old western. You stand in the square in front of the General Store while men, women, and children look on. You stare down your enemy as you position your hand above your gun. As the sun beats down on you, the clock strikes twelve and whoever draws first lives. Someone falls. It all happens in a few ticks of the minute hand.

At times these fights are like an action sequence from a Bruce Lee or James Bond movie. You and your enemy are flying all over the room, breaking tables, flipping off walls, trying to kill each other with swords, guns, ninja stars, two by fours, or whatever else you can grab. It’s like a dance. However, after no more than ten minutes or so, someone makes a wrong move and it’s over. Just like that.

Occasionally these fights are more like battles. You’re on a bloody battlefield, fighting an enemy you can’t really see. You may be wounded and crawling under barbed wire. Bombs are exploding over your head like a scene in Saving Private Ryan. It’s long, drawn-out, scary, and painful. If you’re still alive when the sun comes up, you win. It’s about survival.

No matter the kind of fight, victory is sweet. When you make it out alive, everything is brighter, sweeter, and more fragrant. You appreciate the little things more: birds tweeting, babies laughing, the wind blowing across your face. Sounds cheesy, but not to someone who has faced death and lived.

Of course, being a believer in Christ, I know that there is no battle I cannot win with my Savior at my side. However, sometimes, when the bombs are exploding overhead, the ninja stars are whipping through the air, and the world moves in slow motion as I pull out my gun, there is a little seed of doubt that tries to creep in and tell me that I might not make it.

As I sat in my parent’s living room last weekend, the battle seemed so far away. On a night when I could have been out on the town, doing any number of fun and exciting things, I could not have been more content sitting there on the couch. My step-mother and I were knitting washcloths, while my 91 year old grandfather telling us stories about the good old days, and my dad sat in his chair reading the paper. “I love you guys,” I said. I couldn’t hold it in. “We love you too.”

The only thing I must overcome now is the fear of when the next fight will come. Why fear when victory is assured? Good question. I guess it is fear of the unknown. For now, I try not to hold onto the fear and try to focus on the tweeting birds, the laughing babies, and the wind blowing across my face.