What's The Deal With Super Heroes?

I'll admit it, I am a geek from way back. I liked comics long before it was cool to do so. Many, many years before the television show "The Big Bang Theory" ever made it popular. I was the butt of many jokes growing up, and have spent way too much money on those colored filled pages. Yet there has always been something about them that just made me love them, and I know that I will until the day that I die and go to be with the Lord.

Last night I went to watch the latest installment in the Marvel movie company's line up of super hero movies; The Avengers.  For those of you who don't know, the Avengers is a team of super heroes made up of characters who for the past several years we have been getting acquainted with each summer by watching movies about their personal stories, something for which I am very grateful to say the least.  It's nice to let my inner geek loose during the summer and enjoy watching the comic book pages come to life in a way in which I never dreamed possible way back in the day.

This morning as I was drinking my coffee and wondering exactly when I would be able to go see this movie again, I began to question what it is that I like about these stories so much?  I mean what is the appeal of super heroes for me?  Could it be the fact that in each of these characters I see something about my own life? It's the human condition that I relate to. (And yes, I realize that Thor isn't human, but he shares in the conflict of emotions for which humans do.)   It's also being called up into a story which is larger than your own personal little story that draws me in, because if I am truthful, that is what I long to be a part of as well.

After all, if you take away the fantastical part of the super hero equation, what do you end up with?  People who face challenges just like us and have problems too. Granted, those problems usually involve world domination or destruction, but then doesn't ours as well?  Whenever I face a challenge in my life, I know that it feels as if my world is going to be destroyed.  I mean the problems that I face always seem to be insurmountable and catastrophic to me, don't yours?  While watching these stories, I see the possibilities, and what could be if I am willing to face the challenges also with a fierce determination, and stick with it and see it through to completion.

None of us were promised sunshine and roses in life, challenges do come.  This is something that I believe everyone understands. And if you don't, then you need to. Life can be rough at times and if you don't understand that, you will wonder why your life isn't as good as the next guy's.  Yet it's not focusing on how rough life can be that is the important thing here, because if you do that, then you end up being one of those Debbie-downers who no one likes to be around.

No, don't focus on the challenges, we need to focus on the solutions to those challenges.  And that is where super heroes have it figured out I believe.  What makes them super is not their powers, not at all.  What makes them super is that they have the ability to see the challenge and then they have the fortitude to face it head on regardless of what happens to them personally.  And if that is the definition of a super hero, then don't we all have the ability to be super heroes?  I think so.

Don't run from the challenges that show up in your life, face them head on with the knowledge that you can and will overcome the obstacles, and you will be amazed as you leap over buildings and take out the things that try to destroy your world. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Two Years & Time Travel

Today it has been two years since the death of my youngest son Noah. I must say that it really doesn't seem like that much time has past, but it has. One of the strangest things about losing someone who is close to you, is how slow time seems to pass for you, yet it seems as if those around you are moving through time at a much higher rate of speed. It's kind of like that old movie The Time Machine, the original, not the remake. When the time traveler operates his machine, he sees everyone moving around at a high rate of speed even though he himself never moves. The television show The Big Bang Theory had a humorous tribute to that movie in their first season, here is the clip:

While that is funny, in real life this slow passage of time is not. Speaking for myself, there is a part of me that just wishes I was twenty years down the road from this horrible event. At least that way I might have less to deal with, yet I know that is an impossibility, and not the way that God does things. And how many times have I wished that He would do things the way that I would like, only later to find out that if that had happened, it would have had horrible consequences? I guess He really does know best.

You know if I actually had a time machine where I could go back and change the course of those day's events two years ago I would do it in a heartbeat. I miss my son, I hate that what happened to my family happened. But that is science fiction and not reality. Reality is that my son made a stupid mistake and ended his life, and there is nothing that I can do to change that. But I can make a decision as to what I will do now, and that is to live my life. So many times when tragedy happens in people's lives they give up. They stop living, and like the time traveler just sit motionless while the world around them continues to move on. I refuse to do that.

Life is definitely different now that Noah is no longer here, but I cannot sit around waiting for life to begin again. That's like telling a wood burning stove to heat you up and then you will put some wood and fire into it. You would think that a person who talked or acted like that was insane, and you'd probably be right, yet this is what people do every day. They talk about what is going to happen later on, yet never move past where they are right now. And I for one, don't want to be one of those guys.

My life and that of my family's is different now, but God isn't. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. And that is something that I can latch onto, and walk with having faith that Jesus wants the best for me and my family and was willing to go the distance even to His death on the cross to see to it that I have as He said in John 10:10; "Life and life to the full." I choose life, and I choose to live!