Sometimes, "Strong" doesn't look that way ...

In our society, strength is admired. Revered, even. Words like "big", "powerful", "brawny" are often used to describe strength. This type of strength is commonly called "physical strength".

When we are children, picking at our plate because we find something on it unappealing, we are often told we need to eat our veggies/meat/whatever in order to "grow up big and strong."

The law of "Survival of the Fittest" is often described as the strong overpowering the weak.

In sports, strength is admired in the form of an athlete; the stride of a runner, a football player's tackle ...

On the schoolground, kids who are perceived as "weak" are often picked on or otherwise bullied by kids who wish to be perceived as "strong".

These are all images with which many of us are familiar. These are the concepts of strength against which many of us measure ourselves.

But there are other kinds of strength, those which are, perhaps, less evident or visual. Strength of character. Strength of will. Strength of determination. The words most commonly used to describe this strength are "bravery", "courage".

One could argue that this type of strength is too subjective to measure, and that is true, to a point. But this type of strength, commonly called "inner strength", is less superficial and far more important in our day to day lives than physical strength.

These days, finding my inner strength has been very challenging. Finding the courage to dig down and come up with the words "Hey, I need help" has been pretty much impossible.

Heck, finding words to finish a blog post has been just as difficult of late ... I have no less than three partially-written posts in my "drafts" folder as I type this.

One is a topic for which I will need to really draw on my inner strength to complete; a tribute to my brother who passed away this summer.

I am not sure why I have a hard time asking for or accepting help; perhaps it is because my upbringing has somehow informed me that asking for help is a sign of frailty, or weakness.

In any case, sometimes asking for help when needed takes a lot of strength.

I am working on that.

*This* is the power of love, in action

There are many very interesting blogs out there, but of course, most of us don't have the time to read too many of them.

Even so, I highly recommend checking out Dan Pearce's "Single Dad Laughing", in particular, this post:

A Teen's Brave Response. It's three pages long. It may be difficult to get through it; I myself cried because my heart ached so much while reading it.

But believe me, it is worth the struggle. This is an amazing example of how to choose the path of love over hate.

The son's bravery is evident, and highly praised by readers, as well it should be. But the transformative power of love is best seen through his mother's decision to choose love over hate. Her honesty and bravery in sharing that she was once full of hatred and publicly admitting that she was wrong ... that's not just cool, that's Steve Buscemi Cool.

I would like to thank Dan for his original post: "I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay". I would like to thank "One Proud Mom" for her bravery. I would like to hug her and her teenage son.



Love is an amazing thing.