SURVIVE OR SURRENDER
When tragedy or misfortune strikes there are two choices. The most difficult choice is to survive. The least painful way is to surrender.
WIND RIVER it’s a movie based on a true story.
The storyline is about two fathers who lost their beautiful daughters to brutal murders.
This powerful story is based on the reality that native American women are not reported when they disappear. No other race of people in the USA are treated in this manner.
This movie is the finale of a trilogy directed Taylor Sheridan. It’s a good one.
The one scene in the movie that jumped off the screen for me was the scene between the fathers. One had survived. One was in the decision process to survive; enter into the pain or surrender to it; run away to drugs or even suicide.
These are the two choices:
- Survive. Enter the pain. Relive all memories of the life experiences both good and bad. Let the pain have full play.
- Surrender. Ignore the pain; kill it with what works. Run from the pain.
My mother died a very painful death from pancreatic cancer.
At her gravesite, Fred Crowell had no tools in his life skills toolbox to deal with such pain. As mom’s coffin was lowered into the grave, I promised to never cry again.
I would accomplish this by never allowing myself to think or speak of my mother again.
For three years I did not allow myself to think or speak of my mother. My heart was cold and bitter, not so much as a teardrop fell from my eyes during those years.
Surrender was my choice. It cost me dearly, until the night in Fairbanks, Alaska. Ironically it was 53 below zero. In a group of 12 loving people, the Lord opened my heart and gave me the survival tools to enter the pain and find heart and mind healing.
For these personal reasons, WIND RIVER resonated in my entire being.
Special and valued WOH readers are you in survival or surrender mode?
As one father said to his friend, “If you are not willing to enter the pain you will lose yourself and you will lose your daughter.”
I know this to be true. For three years I lost my mother and I also lost myself. Only when I was willing to go into the pain could I find my mother and myself again.
Jesus Christ not only enters our pain but gives us the power and the courage to join others in their pain. We find our true self in pain, not success. This is a reality of life.
