Lessons from Longbottom

In the Harry Potter series, one of Harry's friends is a shy boy named Neville Longbottom. He was raised by his grandmother after his parents, Frank and Alice, were tortured into madness by the villainous Bellatrix Lestrange. Early in the series, he is not very good at magic, but is almost unstoppable starting in the sixth book. Many fans have linked this drastic change in his magical prowess to his admission late in the fifth book, after his wand had been snapped in half, that the wand he had been using was his father's. Since the wand chooses the wizard, and that wand didn't choose him, it wouldn't have worked properly for him, but the new one he got as a replacement would have. While I agree with this theory to an extent, I think that there is more to it than that.

Neville's parents were highly respected Aurors, or dark wizard catchers, and were tortured because of this. Neville's grandmother, who loved her son Frank very dearly, was saddened by his madness and inability to continue his great work. She therefore wanted Neville to step into his shoes, even giving him the wand Frank was so successful with. Neville grew up with this pressure to live up to his father's legacy, and any failure caused his self esteem to plummet. He thought that he would never be good enough, so he stopped trying. At one point, Professor McGonagall,  his transfiguration professor, even tells him this. When he scoffs at the thought of passing his Transfiguration test, she responds by saying, "Yes, even you, Longbottom. The only thing your work lacks is confidence."

His magic actually begins to improve that very year. Enraged that their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is not letting them actually practice defense, Harry, along with his friends Ron and Hermoine, start a secret group to learn defensive spells, and Neville is an enthusiastic participant. He even admits to Harry during one session, "I've never been able to stun anything before." Though Harry wasn't a certified teacher, he believed in Neville's ability, and that caused Neville to believe in himself as well.

I think many of us can fall into the same trap that Neville found himself in. We desire to be like someone else, but fall short and are upset that we're not living up to the expectations that we, or others, have placed upon us. We feel less than because we are not who we think we need to be. Just this morning, I experienced this when I saw my childhood friend's son get baptized, and thought about the fact that I am still single. I had to remind myself of something Lysa Terkeurst says in her book Becoming More than a Good Bible Study Girl: "I am not equipped for her good, or her bad." Yes, it can be sad to watch others achieve things that we want, but we were created to be us, not anyone else. We will only become the best versions of ourselves when we let go of our dreams and our expectations and let God take control of our destinies.

(Books quoted in this post are Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling and Becoming More than a Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa Terkeurst)