Lessons from a Hobbit

"It's like in the great stories...the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and

danger they were,

and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass.

A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something,

even if you were too small to understand why.

But I think I do understand,

I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back,

only they didn't.

They kept going, because they were holding on to something.

There's some good in the world, and it's worth fighting for."

~Samwise Gamgee, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Do you ever have times when you need a bit of encouragement and you turn to not an old friend, but a piece of literature or a movie? I am going through one of those kinds of times. Not that I don't have old friends to turn to, I do, but in some ways this book/movie seems very much like an old friend.

Many, many times have I turned to Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pipp for perspective on a life that seems daunting, overwhelming, and up hill all the way. I get out my extended version of Lord of the Rings and weep, and weep. I see Frodo being willing at the Council of Elrond to go to places unknown, I see Pippin scooping up Merry as he is wounded in battle promising him he will never leave him again, I see Sam being willing to lay down his life for his friend, I see Bilbo handing Frodo the mithral for Frodo's battle and at the same time Bilbo's battle shows from within. I see Frodo meeting up with different men, elves, orcs and evil and good wizards. The journey is frought with danger, uncertainty, triumphs, sorrows, impossibilites, and places of refuge.

I come away remembering that Aragorn says, "there is always hope." I remember that the battle ensues, the battle is always with us, but sometimes we see it much more vividly than other times. I also remember that little Hobbits can persevere, keep on going, climb Mount Doom on their knees, dream of the "shire", serve a nasty king, know they are on a mission, be pursued by enemies (foreign and domestic), win against impossible odds, be chosen from among the races of men and elves to carry the ring, and at the same time be surrounded by a company of enduring friends that will never give up on them. There is always hope, and always love from the eternal king. So I have to have faith that someday Mount Doom will be destroyed along with the ring of power, Sauron will be swallowed up along with all of his orcs, and the true King will be meet his bride in the eternal white city and even He will honor those little Hobbits that do not loose heart.

Remembering that God is saving all my tears in a bottle with my name on it, and that Frodo left the Council though he, "did not know the way"................Lynn