Invisible Endurance

W

hen I think of someone who displays “fortitude,” what first comes to mind is fictional characters who are courageous, stalwart, indomitable. These are the ones we can count on to make the right choice, do the right thing, or have the right reaction in the face of opposition, disappointment, or sorrow. Take the hobbit Samwise Gamgee, for example.

Sam is, in many ways, the personification of this idea of fortitude. He’s sturdy, loyal, brave, tenderhearted, and willing to do anything he can to help Frodo fulfill his mission to destroy the ring of Sauron. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King, by the time the hobbits find themselves in Mordor in the shadow of Mount Doom, Frodo barely has the strength to crawl toward the mountain. That’s when Sam utters the words that make me want to simultaneously cheer and bawl:

“Come, Mr. Frodo!” he cried. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. So up you get! Come on, Mr. Frodo dear! Sam will give you a ride. Just tell him where to go, and he’ll go.” [1]

Reepicheep the Mouse, in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia stories, is another such character. He is committed to following the Great Lion, Aslan, no matter the consequences. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when the ship has reached the beginning of the end of the world and the crew are debating whether to go forward or turn back, Reepicheep shows no hesitation:

“My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise …” [2]

One other character who embodies this is Marmee in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. She keeps the home fires burning bright while her husband is serving as a chaplain in the Civil War, tending to the physical and spiritual needs of their four daughters while also sacrificing her time, resources, and comfort for the sake of impoverished neighbors. The stage musical based on Little Women shows Marmee’s fortitude in a particularly beautiful way. 

After Beth, one of the younger March daughters, has died, a grief-shattered Jo asks Marmee, “How do you manage? How do you go on day in, day out as if nothing has happened?” In the song “Days of Plenty,” Marmee lays bare her own heartache yet simultaneously fights for Jo’s happiness and healing, singing:

You have to believe

There is reason for hope

You have to believe

That the answers will come

You can’t let this defeat you

I won’t let this defeat you … [3]

Fortitude is the virtue that helps us endure danger, pain, and suffering with courage. But does it always look courageous? Does it always look like moral strength? Can we actually tell whether we possess it? 

The more I’ve pondered what fortitude may look like in my own life and struggles, the more I’m inclined to view it as the quality that enables someone to get back up and go on after they’ve fallen, given in, or come to the absolute end of their own strength. With that definition, other characters from these same authors come to mind—characters who don’t appear to be strong or brave and who even fail spectacularly at the moment of crisis. But I think they demonstrate fortitude in their own ways, hinting at the “invisible endurance” that ultimately carries them beyond the point of weakness, failure, or fear.

Consider Frodo: He voluntarily took on the burden of being the ringbearer because he saw that only someone like him, a mere “halfling” with no throne or kingdom at stake, could carry the ring to the fires of Mount Doom. It can be tempting to write him off as a moral failure because he ultimately succumbed to the ring’s temptation and claimed it for his own. But he didn’t hang his head in shame afterward or wallow in self-loathing. 

Instead, after the hobbits returned home and found the Shire desolated by Saruman, he set about restoring the land and its people to a wholeness in which they could flourish, even though he knew his own part in their story was coming to a close. As Frodo tells his beloved companion at the Grey Havens, “It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.” [4] Frodo sacrificed his life for his friends—not by literally dying, in this case, but by faithfully walking the weary road of rebuilding until the work was done, with wounds far deeper than anyone around him—even Sam—knew.

Toward the end of Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy, Shasta, who so far has appeared variously ignorant, sulky, and not particularly brave, turns a surprising corner. After a grueling journey across the Calorman desert to warn Archenland and Narnia of Prince Rabadash’s invading army—a journey that ends with a hair-raising pursuit by a lion who claws Aravis—the children and the horses Bree and Hwin find themselves at the house of the Hermit of the Southern March. He tells the exhausted Shasta: “If you run now, without a moment’s rest, you will still be in time to warn King Lune.” 

Shasta’s heart fainted at these words for he felt he had no strength left. And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one. But all he said out loud was:

“Where is the King?” [5]

And on he runs. Though his journey is in every sense far from over, we see here the beginnings of the man Shasta will grow into—one who is willing to sacrificially serve his countrymen as their just, wise king.

And then there’s Beth herself. When I read Little Women as a child, I tended to dismiss this shy, home-loving character as “the quiet sister … who dies,” not yet understanding what it means to die well. But after seeing those I love endure physical suffering, and even walking through some of my own, I’ve come to realize that as Beth faced death, she was every bit as courageous as the passionate, adventurous Jo.

With the wreck of her frail body, Beth’s soul grew strong; and, though she said little, those about her felt that she was ready, saw that the first pilgrim called was likewise the fittest, and waited with her on the shore, trying to see the Shining ones coming to receive her when she crossed the river. [6]

Of course, the ultimate One Who showed enduring strength in the guise of apparent weakness is our Lord Jesus, Who

emptied [H]imself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, [H]e humbled [H]imself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:7–8 ESV)

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’s anguish was so acute that He sweat drops of blood while entreating the Father to let the cup of wrath pass from Him, if there was some other way. “Yet not My will, but Yours be done,” He prayed. And so, when Judas Iscariot and the Jewish leaders came a short time later to arrest Him, He did not resist them. He set His face toward the cross and did not flinch. But three days later, He walked out on the other side of death, proving Himself to be indomitable after all.

So, perhaps fortitude is less a matter of outward bravery and more a matter of repeatedly placing one foot in front of the other along the “long obedience in the same direction.” [7] More goes on in our hearts, minds, and souls than anyone but God Himself can realize. And often, only He knows the true extent of the invisible endurance that is reshaping us according to the character and likeness of His Son.

Endnotes

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (Houghton Mifflin, 1955), 218.

[2] C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Macmillan, 1952), 179.

[3] From the musical Little Women; lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. Watch a performance by Emma Kessler of Texas State University here. 

[4] Tolkien, The Return of the King, 309.

[5] C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy (Macmillan, 1954), 122–123.

[6] Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (Viking Penguin, 1989), 415–416.

[7] Though this phrase originated with Friedrich Nietzsche, it is better-known as the title of a book by Eugene Peterson.

The featured image, “Addison’s Fabled Walk,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.

Amelia Freidline

Amelia M. Freidline lives in the Kansas City suburbs with her parents and a feisty wee terrier named for the tallest mountain in Scotland. She studied journalism, English, and history at the University of Kansas and has worked as a word herder and comma wrangler in food media throughout her professional career. She’s a founding member of The Poetry Pub and has helped edit poetry collections for Bandersnatch Books. She is an amateur poet and writer, a photographer of faeryland, and a wielder of butter, and has self-published several small collections of original writing and photography. Raised on Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, Sayers, Conan Doyle and Wodehouse, Amelia hopes to be British if she grows up. She enjoys trees, adventures, marmalade, and great conversations. She loves Jesus because He loved her first.

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