By guest author, Bekah Vickers
Over New Years, our family got a puppy (because sometimes having three kids causes insanity), and I insisted on naming him Samwise Gamgee. This is not a name that one often finds on dog tags, but Samwise is one of my favorite fictional characters, and I decided that if I’m adding a new character to my family, well, I want that creature to be a lot like Tolkien’s humble, loyal hobbit, who sneaks into an important mission uninvited — and then plays a vital role in helping his friend Frodo achieve that mission.
If you haven’t read the Lord of the Rings trilogy (or at least seen the fantastic Peter Jackson films), then add it to your bucket list — you won’t be disappointed. There are a handful of books in this world that have revolutionized my understanding of God, and this is one of them. It isn’t just a story about wizards and orcs and hairy little hobbits — it is the Story of the fellowship we are meant to have with each other. It is a tale about creatures who are so different from each other but called to the same purpose; it is a chronicle of hardship and struggle, despair and loss — and ultimately of victory, and a hope that does not disappoint.
And hope is the reason I love Samwise. He isn’t a great fighter, and his brains aren’t especially sharp. He is often afraid and never claims to have things figured out. But he keeps going — and he keeps Frodo going — right up until the last, terrifying step of their mission. Samwise wraps his arms around Frodo and speaks hope to him, walking him through the moments that Frodo cannot face alone.
Tolkien didn’t invent that storyline; God did. We see it quite literally in Exodus 17, when Aaron and Hur hold Moses’ arms steady so Israel’s army can defeat the enemy. And we see it again in Ruth and Naomi, Jonathan and David, Mordecai and Esther, Barnabas and Paul. Even Jesus himself did not live his earthly life without intimate friends, some of whom walked with him all the way to the foot of the cross.
Like Frodo and Samwise, we are charged with a mission that is crucial to the survival of our world. And like theirs, our mission is often dangerous and uncertain, and it will require all our strength. But God invites us to form our own Fellowship, that we might not attempt this alone, and that we might find in that Fellowship the courage to keep on. This is what we were created for. Let us to choose to be like Samwise: finding that friend or neighbor, spouse or loved one, classmate or coworker, who needs a companion for the journey ahead to help them have hope, reminding them that “in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach” (Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter II).
