Lord of the Rings

This Christmas season we decided to watch the full Lord of the Ring trilogy as a family. The holiday season afforded us the long, late evenings needed to view each of the three movies that my husband & I had previously enjoyed several years apart. For our children this was a new, exciting adventure.

I read the Tolkien books as a young girl but found the imaginative creatures and fierce content to be beyond my interest level and initially the movies struck me the same way. I knew there was a depth of meaning to the storyline but until I watched them all in succession, I couldn't look past the wizardry and violence to experience the full impact of the message.

Without trying to explain the very intricate plot of this epic tale of the battle between good & evil, I want to say that I was overwhelmingly struck by the recurrence of one thing: Evil influence through thoughts and words poisoned any creature that listened and accepted lies instead of choosing to believe and cling to the truth. I saw this play out in several of the story lines over and over. Interestingly, in many of the scenarios there was physical evidence that seemingly confirmed growing suspicions as a deception took firmer hold in one's mind. This was so keen that the lies seemed more believable than the truth.

In the scene just before the final battle in "The Return of the King", Aragorn takes the head off a enemy negotiator who has just presented convincing evidence that their battle against evil has been lost forever and that they might as well surrender.

"I don't believe him!" Aragorn says.

The lie is rejected and in faith they cling to the truth that they will indeed triumph over evil. They have no way of knowing for absolute certain but they choose to believe anyways...even if it means fighting to their death.

The culmination of all deception being vanquished in one bold sword stroke and the simple words, "I don't believe him" spoke to me and my personal struggles.

I too have been influenced by evil and poisoned by thoughts, words and circumstances that deceive the mind. In that moment I realized that I had to fight my own battle and my weapon was the truth. When self-doubt, fear, and negative experiences tell me that evil is winning and I might as well give up, I need to reject the lies and in faith cling to what I know is true.

I decided that night that I was going to start fighting back. I had no idea what that was going to look like but within days a plan of action began to form.