You may be reading this post and you might be saying aloud or thinking, “Thank God this is the last of the Rocky themed posts!”

If your sentiment echoes those thoughts or words, I’m OK with it.

Honestly.

Although I resonate deeply with the lessons each of the movies has drawn to the surface and have taught me over the years, it’s also time to venture into newer writescapes – after one last salvo.

Thanks for allowing me to share the by-product of my Father’s Day gift with you!

You and I have stepped into the ring with Rocky over the course of the past two months as we have traveled memory lane with his boxing opponents – characters with names like Apollo Creed, an Apollo rematch, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, and Tommy Gunn.

Each bout brought its own lesson.

Today, you and I enter the ring one last time with Rocky and his opponent, Mason “the Line” Dixon (where do they dig up these names?).

Personally, this is my favorite movie of the series.

It touches me in many, many ways.

I have seen it several times and in doing so I have shed a few tears as nerves have been exposed.

I have also experienced something inside of me rise up, inviting me to go beyond myself and my real or perceived limitations.

To give you a sense of the movie you can view the trailer by clicking here.

Rocky is stuck in his past as he relives memory after memory about the good old days as a “warhorse” boxer and also his life with Adrian, his now deceased wife.

He makes an annual pilgrimage to visit his and Adrian’s moments together – the pet shop where he met her, the skating rink where they had their first date, the stoop where he invited her to come to his place, the boxing ring, and her gravesite.

His brother-in-law comes along for the annual ride, tires of it, and declares, “you’re living backwards Rocco, it’s time to change the channel from yesterday!” as he lets Rocky know he will not travel to yesterday any longer.

In his own words, Rocky wrestles repeatedly with this inner conflict as he states “there is stuff still left in the basement”, emotions trapped inside which he cannot let seem to let out.

He meets Marie (at one time a child he played big brother to in the original movie) and hires her to be a hostess at his restaurant. She is a friend to him.

To set the context, check out the awesome scene below.

We all have yearnings, gifts, and talents in our lives – some recognized, some not.

Most of us, yours truly included, have at times lived “lives of quiet desperation” as Thoreau once said.

For some of us the feeling lingers. For others, it has come and gone.

We all have hopes and dreams to do “this” or “that”.

Days turn into weeks.

Weeks turn into months.

Months turn into years and we are no closer to those hopes or dreams than we were when the hours were turning into days.

Or so we think!

Inside each of us we all have as Marie states to Rocky, something which identifies us as “who we are…the part of us that is so full of life…we all have that feeling…that fire inside…and we let it go away”.

We think of the meaningful thing inside as “silly” or worry about what others may think if we step out to explore and discover the deeper side of those hopes and dreams.

As Marie empathetically listens to Rocky then helps him see what is inside she cautions him, “This is who you are…this is who you’ll always be…if this (fighting again) is something you wanna do… it doesn’t matter how it looks to other people…it matters how it looks to you…and if this is something you gotta do…then DO IT…. ….fighters fight!”

Marie further states, “You are going to prove the last thing to age on somebody is their heart.”

Over the years I have personally let the fires of many hopes and dreams extinguish while others have dwindled to a few embers.

There have been times if you were to ask me about my hopes and dreams I could not bring them to the surface if a gun were pointed at my head.

However, they are still there.

They are not solely my hopes and dreams, but God’s hopes and dreams for my life. Slowly but surely He is helping me bring them to the surface.

I was reminded of this as well in the movie as Rocky, preparing to fight heeds the words of his longtime friend and former opponent:

“This is the word of the Lord…it is…not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Zechariah 4:6 (NIV)

Whatever hopes and dreams I have will come from within.

You may have given up on your hopes and dreams – don’t!

They are inside of you.

They might intimidate you.

You may have thought of every reason to bury them or keep them locked inside – don’t!

They are part of who you are.

If there is something you have to do or want to do, it doesn’t matter what others may think.

It matters how it looks to you.

By all means do it!

As Rocky plays out the final round of his boxing career, he has put up the fight of his life.

Although he has taken plenty of shots from his opponent in the ring, he took many more from the opponent inside of him.

He comes to the realization that he “has to go out the way he has to go out”.

In other words, he is going to go out giving it all he got.

As he lies on the mat, he hears the voice of his son from the corner of the ring as the thoughts of yesterday haunt him one last time – “Get up! Get up!”

He rises to the occasion and comes out swinging.

With one last hurrah he comes to fully understand – Fighter’s Fight!

Despite “losing” the bout, he wins – because he dared to do what he knew he had to do!

Whatever it is that is keeping you from being or doing what you want to be or do, please know there is a fighter inside of you.

“You can do all things through Christ who is your strength” (Philippians 4:13 NLT)

Go for it.

Fighter’s fight!

What is holding you back from expressing your own Fighters Fight story?

Picture Courtesy of Bruce R. Cross