Protecting myself

I know we've all heard the phrase "that which does not kill you makes you stronger". In high school, I thought it was funny. I don't think I really understood it.

I have found that phrase to be very true. I went on a mission for my church. There were days that I thought I would not survive it. When I thought I would lose my mind because of one crazy companion. Or that I could not handle anymore rain. Or having to deal with elders (male missionaries) that thought they were superior to me and would try to walk all over me just because they had the priesthood and I didn't. Or even because they were male. I mean, seriously.

Anyway.......

The point of all that was to say that I survived all of it, and it made me stronger. I've gone through many other things since then that have also strengthened me.

In that last few years, I feel like I've had darts being thrown at me. Darts full of poison, meant to disable me completely so that I would be under the dart throwers control. The first few don't really hurt. You don't even know what the heck is going on. And then the tenth, and then the twentieth hit. And you start to realize what is going on.

Well, once I realized those darts were hitting me, I started pulling them out. I had to duck and dodge other darts that were coming at me while I was pulling these other ones out. It wasn't easy. Sometimes I wanted to give up, but I kept plugging away. Once I got all of them out, I put on some body armor. I was only able to put on a piece at a time. Sometimes I would still get hit with a dart. Eventually I got the whole body armor on.

The darts keep coming. I'm pretty sure they will never stop. What the thrower of the darts doesn't understand, and will probably never get, is that I have body armor on. I am protected. I know what those darts are full of, and there is no way that any of them will ever get me again. Never ever. And the crazy part is, the body armor is getting stronger. It's almost got it's own force field on top of the body armor. The longer I have it on, the stronger it gets, and soon, the darts don't even come anywhere near me. I can still see them. I remember what it was like to get hit by them. But I'm stronger now. They can't hurt me anymore. The body armor allows me to walk away, with my back to the dart thrower. Because even though there are still darts coming at me, they don't even matter. There are other battles for me to fight, more important battles, using this new amazing body armor that I have on.

(Do you like my metaphor? I kind of dig it.)