Strength Isn't Everything

It’s a common trend in the literature and media of today, to see a character described as ‘strong,’ or maybe ‘tough,’ ‘heroic,’ or ‘resilient.’ If the author or promoter is attempting to show a different kind of strength, they may say ‘spirited,’ ‘rebellious,’ ‘persevering,’ or ‘courageous.’ It’s no secret that our culture emphasizes, encourages, or promotes strength. Weakness in any form is frowned upon, even if it’s understandable, even if it’s the natural response. To some extent, this is a good thing. It teaches us not to let small things strike us down, to push through our obstacles, to refuse to give up or give in when we know we’re in the right but the odds are all against us. It keeps us fighting, and we need that.

You don’t need me to tell you this, of course. You know it’s a good thing to be strong and desire to be strong, to read of strong people and admire them, watch strong heroes and imitate them, write strong characters and hope they will inspire others to strengths they never thought they could have. So please allow me to remind you of something very important, for writing and for life:

It’s okay to not be strong.

Let’s put this in the writing world for a minute. Fictional characters experience all sorts of tragedies within the span of a few short pages. Family members – sometimes entire families – die or never existed to begin with. Friends betray. Enemies wreak physical, mental, and emotional havoc. Journeys are overrun with obstacle after obstacle. Well-intended maneuvers go awry. Yet so much of the time, the characters who have their entire lives reshaped are supposed to just keep going because it’s necessary for the plot, because the world is depending on them, because they don’t have time to grieve.

And they do. They keep going like nothing happened and the book ends without dealing with the scars they’ve accumulated throughout it. Life moves on. And every once in a while, if they have a spare moment, they might wonder if their dead parents would be proud of them or what might have gone differently if that traitor had made better decisions. This is where strength goes astray, by eliminating the natural reactions to monumental events and turning characters – and people – into machines.

It’s okay to be overwhelmed at the obstacles of life. It’s okay to break down crying when everything gets to be too much. It’s okay to be in shock for a while when the waves are building high and there’s no sign of land. It’s okay to collapse under the weight of the world and wonder if you can get back up. It’s okay to be sickened, to be hurt, to be broken. It makes our characters human. It makes us human.

It’s okay to ask for help, too. A lot of the time, in life and in stories, a strong character isn’t supposed to need help, or if they do they’re supposed to struggle through as best they can. Sometimes they’re allowed to ask someone they trust wholeheartedly, maybe one or two people or a small team of devoted individuals, to help them through their hardships. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work, though. I know. I’ve tried to be one of these strong characters. I’ve thought I was supposed to be strong enough to get through my struggles by myself, never letting others see, keeping a stiff upper lip for the benefit of those around me. It doesn’t work out well, as you likely figured out before I did. It just buries our broken pieces and makes them harder and harder to fix – but that’s a post for another time.

Sometimes strength isn’t your own at all. Sometimes you have to borrow it from those around you. They can handle it. You’ve been strong for them before, and they know it. Sometimes they aren’t strong enough either, and then you have to rely on a strength greater than your own, and that’s okay too. Strength doesn’t have to come from you all the time; you’ll burn out before long, and the people around you will burn out if they’re constantly replenishing you. But if you choose to accept that and use strength beyond yourself, strength that isn’t your own, it replenishes you. It fills you with power that you won’t find any other way. After all, His power is made perfect in our weaknesses – not our strengths. When we are weak, then we are strong.

The only part of this process that isn’t okay is if you let yourself stay in it forever, especially if your character does in fact have the weight of the world on their shoulders or an upcoming climactic battle or a difficult conversation. It’s not okay to dwell on your brokenness and drag it out when you have others depending on you. Once you’re capable of thinking of others again, it’s your responsibility to do so. You can do that while you’re still broken, while you’re still overwhelmed, while you’re still fighting whatever battles you’re facing. The people depending on you? They’re broken too. They’re overwhelmed. They’re fighting their own battles. They get it. You don’t have to hide it from them to make yourself look strong. What really shows your strength is admitting your weakness, your battles, your struggles, and not dismissing them but overcoming them when the time comes.

You don’t have to bury your feelings to be strong. You don’t have to ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ or pretend everything is fine. Strength isn’t building thick walls that keep feelings separated from the rest of life and only have the tiniest door or window to allow them through. Strength forms bridges that help you get to the other side and keep fighting. It’s not pushing through regardless of the long-term consequences, it’s joining forces with everyone who would be affected and pushing through together.

Strength isn’t having an unbreakable weapon. It’s reforging the blades that are broken.

So when you’re writing a character who has to be strong, compensate by also allowing them to be weak. When you’re faced with a situation which demands strength beyond your capacity, go ahead and cry and then give it anyway. When you fight battles and climb mountains far beyond your abilities, allow yourself to be weak and keep fighting anyway. When you’re faced with the most inhumane of circumstances, allow yourself to be human, and then overcome them anyway. Be human, but don’t let it render you helpless. Be weak, because it allows you to then be strong.

Lighting Fires

One of the worst feelings in the world is the feeling that you have no purpose. You do things that matter – or not; you eat, work, browse the internet, study, speak throughout the day but get into bed at night and wonder why you did any of it. You feel like you’re drifting, being pushed along the currents of life by the expectations of others and the responsibilities that come with being a human. You may have begun by doing something you love, but even that has lost its color and become just another responsibility to accomplish. The continual question that haunts each of us bursts forward whenever your mind is free enough – why? Why? Why? Why do I still do this? Why does this matter to me? Why do I keep going day after day, still existing on this planet, heart beating, mind working, but the zeal is gone?

What is my purpose?

Everyone yearns for a purpose in life, a motive for getting up in the morning, a reason to keep going, a light of accomplishment at the end of the dark tunnels they may be going through. We need a purpose, a reason, a motive, or we starve. We become empty shells, automatons going through the motions of life but dead inside, only glowing embers left of the roaring fire which once burned inside our souls. And if we aren’t careful, those embers will eventually wink out, and it will take an act of God and combined efforts of those around us to bring it back to life.

This makes it one of the most important things we can do, to keep our fires lit within us. Our passions are the sparks we need, the tongs that stoke our fires, the fuel that feeds us. This alone makes feeding our passions vital to our survival, but there’s more. Passions don’t come out of nowhere; few people (if any) wake up one morning and decide that they love writing or drawing, baking or building. Passions are instilled into the fibers of your being by God, and they lead you to your purpose, the reason for your existence on this earth.

I’ve talked about passions and purpose before, so it’s not necessary to go over it again. I know that passions and purpose are hard to keep up in ‘the real world,’ where it doesn’t matter what you love with every atom of your being if it doesn’t bring in anything above minimum wage and it doesn’t matter if you’re in a job or career you hate as long as it gives you enough to keep from starvation. It’s no easy task, to keep a fire alive that’s constantly drenched in the harsh truth of reality, whether it be financial, physical, mental, emotional, relational, or any other sort of obstacles. But that doesn’t change the fact that this fire is vital to your being, and if you let it die out, so much of what makes up who you are will perish.

It affects those around you as well. Friends, parents, children, all watch to see where your priorities lie. They sometimes recognize what keeps your fire blazing better than you do yourself, and they judge how important it is to you – and some of them will begin to imitate you. If you neglect your art, they may begin to neglect their music. If you put aside your handiwork in favor of more immediate funds, they may keep their own projects from you for fear you will disapprove of their ‘wasted’ time. If you hide away a gift that is meant to be shared, they may hide their own. This is not to blame any of this on you – they may not even recognize your influence in the decision, but it is there nevertheless. And what a dark, dark world we would live in, if everyone extinguished their fires to make a living!

What fire has been lit inside of you, and its burning fuels you? Have you been keeping it under wraps, hoping that the exact right time to reveal it will present itself sooner or later? Have you been stifling it, dismissing it as stupid or unnecessary? Have you allowed it to die out, and now you aren’t even sure how to bring it back to life? Have you not found it yet, still wandering the darkness with a match hoping to happen upon the place to set ablaze? Are you one of the brave sojourners who has chosen to fan their passion into a bonfire, illuminating all around them? Wherever you may be, whatever state your fire is in, remember that it is allowed to die no further. The world needs every spot of light it can get, and your flare may be a beacon to those around you, a signal to spark their own, until the whole world is ablaze. All it takes is another spark – and who knows? It may be yours that the world is waiting on. I beg you - rekindle it!

Couldn't He Have...?

It’s hard sometimes. It’s hard to see other people rejoicing in God’s miraculous healing when you’re still stuck in that hospital bed. It’s hard to watch God bring someone’s loved ones out of danger while your own come back in coffins or not at all. It’s hard to see God reunite families and heal broken relationships when your own are so far gone with no intention of coming back. It’s hard to struggle with a mental illness day after day while others talk about having enough faith and willpower to see their own struggles disappear without a trace. And even if you're one of the friends whose own life is blessed by God in every earthly way, it's still hard because you know others are dealing with disease, pain, famine, persecution, martyrdom, death.

It’s hard, sometimes, to believe God is who He says He is when you’re doing everything right and still nothing is working.

Jesus received word once that His dear friend Lazarus was ill. He waited two days before starting on His journey to see him, and by the time He got there Lazarus had died. He wept on His way to the tomb, and some of the Jews there said, “See how He loved him!” But others said, “Couldn’t He who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”

If you’re familiar with the Bible, you know how the story ends. Jesus was able to prove His power even more than if this were just another healing of the sick, more than if He had come at the beginning or even just snapped His fingers and allowed Lazarus to be healed.

He couldn’t have done this with another request, with the Roman centurion and his servant or Jairus and his daughter. These people didn’t know Him, and they didn’t trust Him any more than any other passerby. No, He had to wait for it to be His friends, people who loved Him and trusted Him, people who knew who He truly was. Only they trusted His power enough to allow Him to do this, and only they still trusted Him as the resurrection and the life when their brother was dead.

Only the friends of God can experience this deepest sorrow and still cling to Him. Only the friends of God can endure these dark nights of the soul without dying out altogether. Only through the friends of God can God work His finest miracles and display His greatest power.

I’m not saying that those who suffer less or who experience great shows of His power are further from God, not by any means. Jairus was a Pharisee, one of the spiritual leaders of his country. The Roman centurion was declared to have faith unequaled by any in all of Israel. It wouldn’t make any sense to say that those who experience the presence of God in miraculous ways are not as close to Him as those who never do – after all, you have to be close enough to believe that God will work in order to see any miracle as His doing.

But I think there is something to be said in the fact that those who walk the closest with God often walk the longest through the valley of the shadow of death. I think there’s something to be said in that the original apostles and many founders of the early church all died as martyrs in ways that make most cringe to think about – and God didn’t send a battalion of angels to rescue them, or even one. There’s something in the fact that spiritual giants, from Charles Spurgeon to Mother Teresa, battled depression and darkness even as they accomplished great wonders for the kingdom of God. There’s something to be said in the fact that those struggling the longest struggles and fighting the hardest fights are often those doing or destined to do the greatest works for the kingdom, and the ones who will say in the end that it was all worth it.

So if your dark night lasts longer than others, if your sorrows run deeper and your cup of joy refuses to be filled, remember that God uses His friends to display His power. He will use the darkness of His friends in ways He would never use that of those who are further from Him. He is not required to give His friends special treatment; the special treatment is for those who truly want Him to use them, and so He does. Because no story which means anything goes without darkness, and the stories which drag the hero through the deepest mud are those which have the most glorious triumphs in the end.