My secret identity

I’m sure everybody reading this blog knows what a big geek I am, so it should come as no surprise that I love superheroes. One of my clearest memories from childhood is running around my grandparents’ house pretending to be Firestar, working with Spider Man, the Wonder Twins and Ice Man to beat the bad guys. (I was an only child, so to say I had an active imagination might be an understatement.) I was somewhat conflicted in my desire to be a superhero in that I occasionally would get captured (damsel in distress!) and have to be rescued before going back to beating up bad guys. But I loved pretending to be a superhero. I still love superheroes, although I think I've come to love warrior princesses more. I never pretended to be Snow White or Sleeping Beauty (well, except for singing slightly operatic songs around the house), but Princess Leia was awesome, and even now one of my favorite LOTR characters is Lady Eowyn.

I have often daydreamed of being something bigger than myself, preferably with the talent for the awesome and witty one-liners. I LOVE awesome and witty one-liners. I’m sure I’m not the only one, or nobody would have saved the reported response of the Spartan King Leonidas when told that his comparatively tiny army should lay down its arms at Thermopylae – “Come and take them.” Or the Spartan who, when told that the enemy arrows would be so numerous as to block out the sun, said “we shall have our fight in the shade.” Or Maximus, in the movie “Gladiator” – “what we do in life echoes in eternity.”

Don’t we all want to feel like our actions echo through eternity, like what we do makes a difference? You often hear about mothers making such a difference, but I’m not a mother. I would love to be a warrior princess with the awesome one-liners. But without pain. I don’t like pain. And without fear would be good. A little fear is okay, but nothing too serious.

And this is where I acknowledge that my desire to be a witty warrior princess is completely divorced from reality. Because let’s face it, I don’t go to the gym enough or have sufficient hand-eye coordination to ever be a good warrior princess. There was one time I was really in a position to help make the kind of difference that would echo through the years – when I was leading a pastor search in a city where intense spiritual warfare is pretty much the norm (there are groups that pray every week for the destruction of the Christian church in that city). I ended up curled in a ball on my bed crying to God that I can’t do this thing I’ve been set to do and if He wants it done, He’ll have to do it through me and in spite of my many weaknesses. 

But you know what? He did!

That’s the amazing thing about all of this – God is the ultimate “superhero”, who doesn’t just operate outside natural laws in a few areas, but who created all of those natural laws and operates outside all of them. And He chooses to use His people – mere jars of clay – to accomplish great things if we’ll only let Him.