Do I have to ask a question?
Because I just want to say thank you, to both of you.
I discovered TWLOHA in high school. Actually, it was about 2:30 in the morning on Valentine's Day in 2009. I was surfing the internet, depressed, trying to distract myself from feeling lonely on Valentine's Day ;)
I found the "Story" post on the TWLOHA website, and between that and several youtube videos, I think I cried for an hour.
I grew up in a very evangelical background, went to private Christian schools, and heard about the power and the love of Christ my whole life.
But I had never seen anything like that.
Here was Love, a love that was powerful, and active. A love that could heal, transform, and redeem.
It was amazing! It put my problems, and my pain, into context; life could be muuuuch worse than being a shy, 17 year old white dude :)
And yet, TWLOHA also showed me that it was ok to hurt, that pain was something human, and we all shared it. You guys changed my image of people who struggle with self-worth and self-harm from "crazy people" to "hurting people." That was HUGE to 17 year old me.
That revelation helped me to recognize my own depression problems, and set me on the path to facing them -though that took a while.
And when I found cuts on a friend's arm the next summer, all I could think was "Renee's friends didn't run; they loved her instead."
You guys showed me what agape love looks like.
Renee, you showed me that the only way to deal with your emotional problems is to face them, and that it's okay not to be perfect. I really needed that. Thank you =)
You guys inspired me to be the best friend I could be to that girl, who, though she still deals with her share of self-image and esteem problems, hasn't cut since that summer.
Tolkien's works are some of my favorite books, and he is often on my mind. Tolkien served in WWI, and lost most of his childhood friends to it. He saw the worst of humanity, and knew pain and despair rather well.
Galadriel, knowing the terrible place he must walk through to destroy the Ring, gives Frodo a phial full of starlight, that will "be a light for [him] in dark places, when all other lights go out."
Through the smoke and the fumes and the darkness of Mordor, Sam Gamgee "saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that, in the end, the Shadow was only a small and passing thing; there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
More than once -many more times than once- you guys have been a light in the dark places in my life. You have often reminded me that the stars are always there, but we miss them sometimes, in the dirt and the storms.
And that the Shadows cannot win forever.
For that, I cannot say thank you enough =*)