Be a warrior

The door to the cage of our limitations is not locked. Yet we hold back shivering. Why? Because fear intimidates us into that corner, and fear is a devil. We are attached to him by the chains of a lack of faith wrapped around our necks. However, those chains can be released. Our hands are free and we can loosen the bonds anytime we wish.

Some of us say, “Life’s a pain, then you die.” That’s the big fellow talking. The devil is looking over our shoulder and whispering in our ear that we are not good enough. He keeps us attached to him by telling us that we are not worthy, that whatever we do will turn to garbage. And, of course, we believe. Why not?

Most of the time we can’t hear the angels over the noise of that maniacal, ego-driven, little green monster of a devil. He is yelling and screaming at us that we are not worth the price of a cookie. The angels seem to be silent, not speaking a word of encouragement. But they do speak. It’s just that they speak softly, never yelling, never pushing their weight around the way the devil does. But he’s not about to let the angels speak and get a word in edgewise. If we did hear those angels, we wouldn’t trust them anyway. We are so overwhelmed and paralyzed by all that fear that we are convinced our dreams are not possible.

Sometimes we’ll summon up a little courage and defy that devil. We’ll tippy-toe over to the door of our cage at the end of our chains and peer out. It looks great out there. But we hold back. The world can’t be all Spring and filled with wonderment. It must be an illusion, we convince ourselves. It’s really Winter out there. So we listen to that troll, that devil. He knows us better than we know ourselves, knows we can never be a warrior.

It takes a warrior to grab hold of those chains, jerk ourselves free and slay that ogre. It takes a warrior to take on that liar with his lying tongue and do him in good. Because, once dead, that monster does not stay dead. Like a phoenix, he rises from the ashes of his demise, ready to call everything into question again. It takes the warrior in us to smack that troll right back down and keep smacking him hard until he doesn’t get up anymore. But we can do it. I know we can. It takes a warrior. In spite of everything we’ve heard to the contrary, we are warriors.

We forget we have been warriors all our lives. We forget all those brave deeds we’ve done, deeds like being born. My God, it took a lot of moxie to come out of that warm, safe place of our mother’s womb and face a cold and heart-breaking world outside. But we did it. It took a lot of guts to walk into our first classroom at school and learn our A-B-Cs. But we did it. It took nerve to get on that bicycle for our first ride. After all, we might fall off. And we did fall off, but we got right back on again. We were brave when we made friends with that person who didn’t seem to like us much. Then we became best friends. We were fearless when we went to our first job. We knew we could perform well if given the chance. It took a whole truckload of valor to marry the love of our life and start a family. We’ve been fearless a thousand times and we will continue to be so, even when we have to face death. We will do it, and we will make it just fine.

So all we have to do is be a warrior and snap off those chains, then go over to that unlocked door of our cage, push it open and walk on through. The weather is fine outside. The angels will be waiting. And so what if it is raining? There will be an angel out there. She’s the one with the umbrella. It’s time for us to go out and face our dreams. They may just come true.

“Oh,” you say, “that’s the scary part, that my dreams do come true.” It’s okay. We can face that to. After all, it’s only the troll talking, holding us back. Don’t worry. He’s only a small ogre of a devil and shrinking all the time.