Where I Learned Courage

The Oklahoma town crawled with a population of eight-hundred. Some enjoyed small town living, others tolerated it, and yet others didn’t know any different. One woman, navigating life a couple of clicks south of garden-variety dysfunction, shared low-income housing on the north side with a man her boys simply referred to as “him.”

Three years into her two-year degree, nursing textbook in her lap, wrestling with concepts and terminology foreign to a woman twenty years out of high school. Her chair was part of a matching living room suite which brought comments from his relatives, “He must really love you.” And now he and his brother towered over her, demanding her financial-aid.

The worst kind of abuse lingered in her past, and few understood the scope of its defilement, tainting every choice of employment, friendship, and romantic interest. Enrolling in junior college already called for a paradigm shift in her thinking about the future, and dropping out would only cement her legacy as a victim.

These defining moments aren’t made by the converging of events upon a point in time, but rather they leap into existence on the heels of a choice. Choices are generally mundane, but those that defy precedent come with risks, and sometimes violence. They challenge the status quo, forging a new standard, leaving behind the inescapable and lunging for the impossible.

She averted her eyes back to her studies and answered softly, “I can’t do that.” Such a refusal normally meant ignorance. But she knew him. The length of the next moment allowed the danger to become a tangible force in the room, but this night something else was present as well. Courage.

Breaking from years of conditioning and complex senses of self-preservation is wrought with fear. She may have feared him, or she may have feared leaving familiarity, but I suspect she had a revived fear of the Lord. For the courage to turn from such night comes from the dawning of conviction.

Mom finished her nursing degree when I was in boot camp and soon moved out. She has continued to display great courage right up to this day.