see Here There Be Dragons in the sidebar for parts one and twoYou and your spouse take your children by the hands and run from the crumbling ruin of your house; run from your neighborhood, tossing dust and chickens and numerous small children to and fro in your wake, until you have passed through the gates of your village and into another. Madly, you flee from the truth but the dragon follows you everywhere. It’s as if you and yours are in its blood and vice versa. It smells you, a scent it knows as well as the stench of the scales enrobing its hoary skin--you have no hope of outsmarting it. Yet, it’s a truth you cannot swallow; it is too large and bitter and becomes lodged in your throat, denying you much needed air for your overworked lungs. And still you run, your emotions a raw mixture of fear, hope, anger and despair.
Your eldest child is the first to bear the brunt of the dragon’s fiery maw as it chases you down and roars its disapproval. Your son, through no fault of his own, is a bit slower than the rest of you, slower to move, to understand, to react—and quickest to be burned. He is also less able to cope with his wounds than one ought to be and your flight into Who Knows Where takes on a new focus: finding help for your near-mortally wounded firstborn. Very little time goes by before the next victim is burned, nearly as badly as the first--your spouse--the one who always brings up the rear and does all he/she can to protect the rest of you.
Numb with need, you run from one place to the next. Time and time again, hope envelopes you as you settle into a new environment. But the dragon lands once again on your roof, usually sooner than later, and you are forced to start over; to head out to find a new home b/c yours is once again in a smoldering heap, to barter to replace the charred remains of your clothing, to trade everything you have for a cart to carry the ones too wounded to walk.
In spite of the hardships, you are grateful for every place you’ve been, each mountain you have climbed, each person whom you have met in your travels. You have learned something from everything and all of it is useful in your quest. There are even some who are willing to brave the heat of the dragon's roar once or twice in order to give you succor. You will always treasure those people in your heart. But there comes a point when each of them stops coming back and plenty who would never consider approaching the House with the Dreaded Roof Dragon to begin with.
Once again on the move, you look at your beloved spouse and children, see the wounds dressed up with bandages, take in the pervasive odor of burn ointment, and finally know that you will never be rid of the dragon. Instead, as you trudge along, you wonder where you can go where there are people who can tolerate the destructive beast. A place where you do not overhear judgmental remarks made about you in the market place, such as: “They would have more means if they would simply settle down in one place.” and “They are mad to run so far and so long when crops need time to grow and mature.” Or “Why do they continually set their house on fire? Have they no common sense?”
Overwhelmed, you do your best to absorb the pain as, gasping for air, the cold, sharp steel of their words slithers into your heart. Surely people know you are better, smarter, wiser, more valiant than that? Surely they know that a roof dragon is almost one hundred percent unassailable and that God intended for us to have the kindness of one another in times of need?
And that’s when you realize the truth: they can’t credit the danger you face, the depth of your challenge, the quagmire of your need, because, to everyone but you, your dragon is quite simply . . . invisible.
Your eldest child is the first to bear the brunt of the dragon’s fiery maw as it chases you down and roars its disapproval. Your son, through no fault of his own, is a bit slower than the rest of you, slower to move, to understand, to react—and quickest to be burned. He is also less able to cope with his wounds than one ought to be and your flight into Who Knows Where takes on a new focus: finding help for your near-mortally wounded firstborn. Very little time goes by before the next victim is burned, nearly as badly as the first--your spouse--the one who always brings up the rear and does all he/she can to protect the rest of you.
Numb with need, you run from one place to the next. Time and time again, hope envelopes you as you settle into a new environment. But the dragon lands once again on your roof, usually sooner than later, and you are forced to start over; to head out to find a new home b/c yours is once again in a smoldering heap, to barter to replace the charred remains of your clothing, to trade everything you have for a cart to carry the ones too wounded to walk.
In spite of the hardships, you are grateful for every place you’ve been, each mountain you have climbed, each person whom you have met in your travels. You have learned something from everything and all of it is useful in your quest. There are even some who are willing to brave the heat of the dragon's roar once or twice in order to give you succor. You will always treasure those people in your heart. But there comes a point when each of them stops coming back and plenty who would never consider approaching the House with the Dreaded Roof Dragon to begin with.
Once again on the move, you look at your beloved spouse and children, see the wounds dressed up with bandages, take in the pervasive odor of burn ointment, and finally know that you will never be rid of the dragon. Instead, as you trudge along, you wonder where you can go where there are people who can tolerate the destructive beast. A place where you do not overhear judgmental remarks made about you in the market place, such as: “They would have more means if they would simply settle down in one place.” and “They are mad to run so far and so long when crops need time to grow and mature.” Or “Why do they continually set their house on fire? Have they no common sense?”
Overwhelmed, you do your best to absorb the pain as, gasping for air, the cold, sharp steel of their words slithers into your heart. Surely people know you are better, smarter, wiser, more valiant than that? Surely they know that a roof dragon is almost one hundred percent unassailable and that God intended for us to have the kindness of one another in times of need?
And that’s when you realize the truth: they can’t credit the danger you face, the depth of your challenge, the quagmire of your need, because, to everyone but you, your dragon is quite simply . . . invisible.
(Thanks for the comments and emails--but I'm fine. This is a story decades in the making and I'm still ten years away from now in my story. But thanks! It means a lot!) (But, hey, as long as you're here, be sure to check out the post just previous to this one where I review The Road Show by Braden Bell. And then check out Braden's blog. He's going to be big.)
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it's not as romantic as it sounds
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