Everyday Champions

Here is what I tell them:

When you have walked a difficult way, you gain an authority that belies your youth. If you are sixteen years old and you know what it means to resist constant fear, abuse, negativity, and the seemingly constant pronouncement of failure over your world, you have authority to speak. Every time you look at yourself in the mirror and choose to live again, you gain authority. When you have walked a difficult way, you learn secrets. You learn where to walk on the path. You learn where the safe places are; you learn how to recover when you slip; you learn how to light a flare and hold it high above your head as a beacon of hope for others; you learn where the places to rest are-- and the people who need to know will recognize the light in you and begin to seek you out. You.

You might not have fancy words. You might not have profound sayings. But there is a quiet confidence that comes with survival.

You. The champion who saw the beautiful battle, bella...bellum, and stepped into the campos to be the campio. They will sit and listen and watch.

So now I see a room full of champions.

They are writing. Some of them never write, but today when I asked them to tell me about the champion living inside of them, they began to write. When I told them not to worry about their spelling or grammar (shock! horror!), they hunched over and held their pencils awkwardly and began to write. They squirmed and twisted their bodies around as they leaned their skinny, growing torsos across their notebooks to protect their privacy, and they wrote.

They are writing because they hear the sound of their own drumbeat in their own veins. Their struggle, their personal war, is violent and private and they are covered with bruises and scars from frostbite and sunburn and they're winded, but daily they return to the field of play. The field of battle. 

How do I help them to believe it?

How do I help them grow in strength, tenacity, and grit? Oh, God, how do I teach them to not give up?

And in the stillness, while they are at work untangling the strings attached to each of their thoughts, I hear with clarity from the One who has taken up residence in my soul: Live it out before them. Light the flares. Listen to their stories. Show them the snares in the path. Be their champion. 

So I tell them:

Keep writing.