Unconquerable

February 11, 1990. I was a senior at Ogden High School. My family was enduring some serious struggles but for the most part, I lived a very sheltered life. I had a roof over my head, food to eat, great friends and most importantly, I was free - free to live the life I wanted to live. On this particular day, I'm sure I was fretting about the upcoming Valentine's Day dance at school and other normal teenager worries. Little did I know that half way around the world an extraordinary man was being let out of prison where he had been for almost 30 years because he opposed the black segregation in South Africa - Apartheid. His name was Nelson Mandela. As the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election (meaning blacks and whites could vote), he would bring about tremendous change and help lead the transition towards multi-racial democracy in South Africa.

So, you didn't think you were going to get a history lesson did you? :) That is not my intent here. Troy and I saw the movie "Invictus" the other day. Yes, I have read that some of the facts are wrong. Well, that's Hollywood for ya. But in their defense, they had to tell a complicated story that took place over the course of many years and do it in 2 hours. Some things had to be squished and tweeked and made to fit the time frame. It was a great story. What I was most intrigued with was Nelson Mandela himself.

27 years he sat in a prison cell because he wanted all men to be treated equally. In my lifetime? No way! Yes way! He emerged from that cell a humble, loving, forgiving, powerful man. I'm not saying he was perfect. I do not agree with some of his tactics or with some of his recent directives associated with the United Nations. But, honestly, most of us would not have been able to leave a sentence like that having completely forgiven those who put us there and ready and able to teach a whole nation to do the same. In 1993, he won the Nobel Peace Prize - an honor he deserved.

While in prison he found solace in a poem which I have heard before but never really paid attention to. The poem is entitled "Invictus". As I read this poem I thought of Mandela sitting in a small jail cell for years and years, treated like garbage by the guards and yet finding within himself an unconquerable soul.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I read many articles about Nelson Mandela before writing this post. He had a vision of how South Africa could be. It isn't there yet. There is still so much discrimination all over the world in many shapes and forms, racial, religious, gender issues, socio-economic, educational...the list goes on.

Mandela has a cause, one he believes in with all his heart. He is willing to die for his cause. He takes direction from his heart as he knows he is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. So can I be and if I've learned anything over the past 37 years, it is that when I give myself over to our Lord, I become even more in control of myself. His laws are set to free us, not bind us. He sees what we do not see and knows what we do not know. Trusting Him is, in my opinion, the greatest thing we can do to master of our soul.

Someday, someday, the Savior will come again. We shall all be free. He is unconquerable and so are we as we keep His commandments and follow His footsteps. With Him, nothing is impossible.