What (Are) You Gonna Do?

When you're faced with a dilemma, what do you do? Do you rise to the occasion? Do you retreat in fear? What do you do?

In the Tina Turner movie What's Love Got To Do With It?, Tina endures emotional, physical, and mental abuse from her then-husband, Ike. She leaves, and he finds her. She talks back, and he hits her. I don't know much about domestic violence. This blog entry isn't about that. It's about finding your strength when you feel weak.

So, Tina lives in this situation for years. Towards the end of the movie, she fights back (literally). And, of course, she goes on to become the Grammy award winning, legs-of-a-goddess singer that we know her as today. That's not my favorite part of the movie, though.

It's the part where Tina, played by Angela Bassett, is getting ready to go onstage for a performance. By this point, she's divorced Ike and has started her solo career. Ike, played by Laurence Fishbourne, comes to her dressing room right before she's to go onstage. He lets Tina/Angela see the gun that he's got in his hand. She looks at the gun, looks back at him, and says, "I don't know what you gonna do, but I'm gonna go on that stage and perform..." (Those may not be the exact words). But you could tell that she was nervous/scared. Even though she was scared, she found the strength and courage to walk past him and his gun. He looked surprised. I'm thinking she was probably a little surprised, too.

So, have you found your strength when all you feel is fear? How did you do it? What were you thinking?