Encouragement

MY ENEMY, MY CHAMPION, MYSELF

by olive Ngoe
02/07/11
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MY ENEMY, MY CHAMPION, MYSELF
It is the beginning of February today. The newness and wonder of another beginning is gone. It is lost in the daily toil and care that we go through, the burdens and the responsibility that is ours to bear. I thank God, I still feel reborn with every rising of the sun; this time I have held on to the newness of the Son. He is risen. And there is someone else I see with him, and together they cheer me on. I am glad.
For you see it was not so long ago that she was not there, beside him, together with him. I can tell you that she knew him and he knew her, but she was just not there. Like life often does at some point, it threw all manner of challenges, disappointments, distractions and destructions on her path. And the arrows kept coming, never ending. At some point she stopped moving forward, looking to the hope that was beyond the scorching sun and the painful blows. She stopped and stood still and she was beaten to the ground. And whenever she tried to rouse herself, her dreams, her hope, her life, fear gripped her and told her not to even bother trying, she could not do it. So she lay there hurt, confused and hopeless. And when she lay there on the ground she did see others like herself, her misery found company; and together they blamed this and that and the other. They laughed together when I tried. And I heard them laugh at me. I never saw the sling that was in my hand, the one that was directed at me with contempt and disgust, discouragement and damaging self-reproach and negative talk. I did not look at it even as I beat myself and help the enemy beat me. It has been long and there have been many days when I woke up and tried to crawl, even walk. Then the arrows flew overhead and I just got back down, even though I was not hurt. I was afraid, I was used to laying there on the ground, it was familiar, it was wretched, it was ‘safe’. In the distance I heard the faint hint of laughter, she was there with the enemy, she had my voice. They laughed together; they must have watched my attempts. I was bitter.
One morning I called on the Son. I did not want to live like this. I cried to him to take this cup or take my life. He came, he took my hand, he was there. And all of a sudden, I was aware of quiet; that the laughing stopped, her laughing stopped. She came near and saw that the Lord was with me and she walked with us. It is beautiful now. She is with me and we speak as one, and the Son is with us. Nothing separates us now. The arrows do not harm any more, though they are still there. They are weapons formed against me and I used them on myself at one point, but no more shall they prosper.
I join in song with David, when he came home from the battlefield weary and sore. And the sight that met him was awful. And the men that were with him were not in the least pleased with him. And when it was all bleak, he did the only thing he knew how. He did what he must have done those many hours he spent away in the fields looking after his father’s sheep; those hours when he was away and no one reckoned to remember that he was Jesse’s son when Samuel came a knocking. He encouraged himself in the Lord. At once I am in the bleachers with the Son, shouting, encouraging, clapping and nudging forward, and in the same breadth I am in the field with him, in the race of my life running, falling, getting up, running toward the finish line.
It is still the beginning of February, the cares of January come and gone. It is easy to lie down and let the year go by like the last. This year I will not be weary, I shall dare to dream and see my dreams fulfilled, because she will be right there cheering me on, my champion, myself.