FIGHTING THE BATTLE, WAVING YOUR WHITE FLAG & LETTING GO

Okay,

I’m a fighter. I always have been. I mean I grew up with an identical twin sister and we would compete… over everything! Who could eat their cereal fastest, who could climb the tallest tree, we’d race up the stairs daily, and for years we battled it out 1v1 in the park; just us and a soccer ball, you name it… it was a competition. Which in itself, develops a fight within you… and just so you don’t get the wrong idea, let me say that she is my best friend and quite literally the greatest blessing I have been given in this life. But I will tell you, and so will anyone else who’s known us for any length of time… We Love each other greatly, but we’ve also fought just as hard.. They’ve seen the black eyes, the broken nose and the many bruises along the way, so needless to say, “Fight” is what I do. It’s also why I LOVED boxing so much. As unenjoyable as it is to literally get punched in the face, and it is definitely inevitable if you are boxing, it doesn’t seem to matter. Because learning to fight while maintaining control, is a skill and a value that I will forever hold tightly to, and look to grow deeper in; and one I think everyone should learn. It changes you.

I say all this… because I am definitely at my core, a fighter. However, there have been 2 instances in my life where I have quite literally been forced to give up my fight; Where I have had to let something go that I didn’t want to, something I had committed my life to, and loved with my whole heart. And I know how hard letting go is, for everyone. But… For those of us where fighting is what we do… those brave (or stupid enough) to lay it all on the line, to put it all out there, give every bit of what you have and your whole heart to a person or a thing… to quite literally drop your guard and put yourself in the position to be figuratively punched in the face… I know that you resonate with me when I say… Letting go… it doesn’t even feel like an option. THAT is our level of fight… We will keep going, until we are beaten, bloody and bruised, even beyond recognition. And as beautiful as that is, and it is beautiful… because you know, no matter what, we will forever be able to walk, or maybe limp… but we will be able to move forward knowing that we gave EVERYTHING! And I would rather have given everything even if it means my face is mangled, my teeth have been knocked out, and I may never walk exactly the same than have walked away knowing I withheld. BUT… that being said, at some point… we have to know when to wave our white flag.

And, I hope by now you get my point and understand that I do not say that lightly; I believe in fighting until the risk of staying in the fight is so heavily leaning toward permanent damage or fatality that you simply must give up OR… when you are not given the chance or choice to fight any longer, because in relationships, it takes two. But what then… how do we even do that. How do we go against everything that our inner design says we are? How do we tell our heart to quit? I’m going to be honest; I don’t know… But what I do know, is that leaning on the one who designed me has been a pretty good place to start. Having faith in something bigger than myself has given me a resilience and a hope that no matter how beat up I might be, no matter the battles I lose, and the failures I experience… I have witnessed one thing to be the Absolute Truth. All things work together for good if we give ourselves over to the process of growth and what God is doing in the middle of it. There is a much larger picture at play than our limited understanding and view of the “battle” we are currently walking through. Some things truly have to fall apart so something better can come together. And more often than not… It’s maybe not about the actual fight itself. I think more often than we think, it’s actually about who we are becoming. God if we give Him the opportunity will use every bit of our pain, failure, rejection and discouragement to grow us into a better and more beautiful version of ourselves… every single time. We will gain wisdom and insight and a sense of self that is deeper and more profound than we could of ever discovered without the battles.

BUT… what I see so often around me, are people running from the pain. Playing small at the fear of failure (guilty of this myself too many times), blaming others, avoiding commitment at the risk of rejection, and drowning discouragements with distractions. There’s this quote, it says… “If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed all over somebody who didn’t cut you.” And, that’s so true… but life is messy, and hard, and we are going to undoubtedly get hurt. So, I guess what I think is this… that once we’ve had to wave our proverbial white flag, maybe we don’t actually have to stop fighting… Maybe this is where the “fighting under control comes in”, and what we need to do, is redirect it … and start to fight for ourselves. We fight through the pain, the failure, the rejection and the discouragement… We take a hard look at our own selves, where we missed it, what we can learn and how we can grow.. and then… we do that. We fight for us and for who we were created to be. We fight for our healing, and our growth. We do the hard work of “becoming.” Becoming the best version of us that we can be, so that when that next thing comes around, that next opportunity, that next relationship, whatever it may be… We have paused, taken the time, and are now, standing there, not bleeding, not blaming, and no longer bruised. We are just there… open hearted, walking in more wisdom, with higher levels of integrity and certainly a higher level of resilience that gives us the courage and capacity to conquer the next time.

And I want to say… if this hasn’t been you, and you haven’t had the capacity or ability to fight, If you’ve felt too weak, too broken or too bruised. Let me tell you. You are braver than you think, stronger than you know… and in any moment, you too can lean on the one who created you, and begin the fight for your own self too, and in that, we develop the ability to fight for others.