It's good to be back! I've been on Grandma duty this past week and loved every minute of it! But, now I'm back! I've had the movie "Blind Side" on my mind the last several days for this post. I guess we all may receive different messages from the movie, depending on our life experiences, etc. For me, there were two moments in the movie I would like to share with you because they impacted me and hopefully will help me sing my "song" for your edification.
I looked up the definition of "blind side" in the dictionary, and I quote; "The side of a person opposite to the direction in which he is looking." New World Dictionary. Wow, the definition alone speaks volumes to me. Anybody else ever been "blind sided" in life? I think we all have. The side of a person opposite to the direction in which he was looking, man! The implications are numerous. The emotional, spiritual and even physical consequences can be life changing.
Here are my thoughts; First, I would like to share a moment in the movie in which Michael Oher is practicing on the football field. His mom, Leigh Anne Touhy, is watching on the sidelines and sees he's not doing well. She goes and pulls him off the field and has a short talk with him in which she reminds him of incidents in which he chose to try and protect his family. She told him to view his teammates as his family and that it was his job to protect them. BTW, Michael starts playing much more effectively after that. Afterward she goes up to his coach and tells him that he should really get to know his players and informed the coach that Michael scored in the 98th percentile in protective instincts.
When I hit that moment in the movie, my mind goes back to me as a young child. I am sitting in a car late at night with an older sister and younger brother in the parking lot of a restaurant. Seated in the next car over are my mother and her boyfriend and they are arguing. He grabs her head with both his hands and starts banging her head against the dashboard of the car. I remember yelling for him to stop, and he does, yet I am scolded for yelling out. That is the extent of my memory of the incident. EVERY time I see this point in the movie I flash back to that moment in my life.
You might ask, what would go through a small child's mind that would prompt them to do that. I'm not sure I can answer that. I just remember that something welled up inside of me and I had to do something. All I guess I knew to do was to yell at him to stop. It didn't seem to matter that I was a child and they were adults. I was not thinking of what the consequences would be for my actions...all I was thinking was my mother was being hurt and I had to do something about it.
I believe if I took the test that Michael Oher took, that I, too, would score very high in that category as well. I share this experience because I realized that the incident in the car that night, as traumatizing as it might seem for a child to watch, was an example of how God wired me and used all the experiences in my life to be used for my good and for His glory.
I have been "blind sided" more than once in my life, as I am sure you have been. The decisions we make during those times help define who we are and what we believe. It may seem to take more courage than we ever dreamed possible. This leads me to the second moment in the movie in which Michael is assigned a paper at school. In it he writes on the subject of courage, and I quote; "Courage is a hard thing to figure. You can have courage based on a dumb idea or mistake, but you're not suppose to question adults, or your coach or your teacher, because they make the rules. Maybe they know best, but maybe they don't. It all depends on who you are, where you come from. Didn't at least one of the six hundred guys think about giving up, and joining with the other side? I mean, valley of death that's pretty salty stuff. That's why courage it's tricky. Should you always do what others tell you to do? Sometimes you might not even know why you're doing something. I mean any fool can have courage. But honor, that's the real reason for you either to do something or you don't. It's who you are and maybe who you want to be. If you die trying for something important, then you have both honor and courage, and that's pretty good. I think that's what the writer was saying, that you should hope for courage and try for honor. And maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do have some too."
It's hard, life is hard and that's a fact. So, where does that leave us? Leigh Anne Touhy knew her son...she knew him so well that she knew what motivated him to be the best that he could be. If a mother knows this, I believe our Heavenly Father, who formed us in our mother's womb, does too. He created us!
He knew that by allowing me as a child to be put into positions of choosing whether to try to protect those I love or not would help develop that desire that He Himself place inside of me when He created me. He knew that it would be a necessary trait for me to have when fighting for my family in 1992. He knew too, that in 2001, when being faced with a mysterious illness that, again, I would need to choose to fight not only for myself, but more times than not, more importantly to me, my family's well being. He was and is my Leigh Anne Touhy, reminding me of times past when I chose to try to protect my family and stand up for what I believe.
He knows what we need before we do. He knows what it's going to take to be victorious. He knows that the pain is there and He doesn't like it or enjoy it any more than we do, but He allows it. He allows it because He loves us. He loves us so much He allowed His only Son to die for us.
Michael Oher spoke of praying that the people telling us what to do have some courage and honor themselves. This is a good thing. A better thing is to then take it to God and allow Him to direct us and tell us what He wants us to do. In the process we will obtain honor and courage because we will be making decisions based on what we believe and in Whom we believe. The outcome will become irrelevant because if we base our decisions on Him and His Word, it be the best for us and for everyone we love.
I hope my last thought is a comfort to all of us. God is NEVER "blind sided". He is omniscient (all knowing), He is Omnipotent (all powerful) and He is Omnipresent (present in all places at the same time). He loves us. He is glorified through us when we choose to follow His guidance. "Blind side" is not in His vocabulary. Amen. Now, that's something to "sing" about!
Songbird
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