A Dragon of a Prayer

I've been, how should I say it?... Devouring Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. It is what you would think about dragon books. Dragon and rider are connected, they have to learn how to work as a team, they have to save the world.

Through all of that though, what really got to me was this part of the book:

They enveloped each other within the folds of their thoughts, holding each other with an intimacy no physical embrace could replicate, allowing their identities to merge once again. Their greatest comfort was a simple one: they were no longer alone. To know that you were with one who cared for you, and understood every fiber of your being, and would not abandon you is the most precious relationship a person can have...

In that moment, while I was reading, it immediately brought to mind prayer. Prayer is the way we talk to God, we are told to, "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), that when we pray we are to give thanks; to come to Him with everything that we are. Our worries, our plans, our loves and our troubles. When I pray, I am enfolded in His love, held by Him in an intimacy that no physical embrace can even dare to match. I am folded within the Loving arms of God, and in prayer, I am no longer alone. I am merged with Him and have that most precious of relationships. I am understood, cared for and totally belong. Never neglect prayer for the small things of this world. We are created for this type of relationship; one only found with Jesus Christ. Believe He is, all that He says He is, and you will have the ultimate relationship better than a Dragon and her Rider.

What Batman taught me

My brother and I were having one of many random conversations and we meandered to the topic of what comic books taught us. Being different people we learned different things and Batman is one of my most memorable.

Batman epitomized for me the ideal of taking a horrible situation and not letting it destroy you. If Batman had given into the deaths of his parents, he could have walked the path of bitterness. He could have walked the path of destruction and disease; creating nothing but fear and death in his wake (and I'm sure somewhere someone has written an alterverse where that is exactly what he did). However he didn't give into those things.

Instead he became The Caped Crusader. Fighting for truth and justice and for the cleaner streets of Gotham. In much the same way we can also rely on Christ to help us become The Caped Crusader for the people in our lives. Genesis 50:20 says, "But as for you, you thought evil against me; God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."

Even when people do evil towards us, when we lose the things we hold most dear; we can hold to the knowledge that Christ works through us all for good. To save those who we don't even know yet, to give us what we lost, to work the plans that He has for us, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11