Last week we took my son Noah and his friends to see “UP” , the new movie out by Pixar for his birthday. It was a great movie. First of all, for a free spirit like myself – the whole premise of having a million helium balloons pick me up and fly me around the world, and drop me by a beautiful waterfall is quite captivating. (well, despite the fact that I am afraid of heights)
I thought that beyond the humour and fun, that the movie had a great message. The main character – a senior citizen named Carl, lived his whole life with his wife always dreaming and planning for the future – but they never quite got to see that dream come true (living beside the waterfall) When she dies, he feels like he has to live that dream for her, the dream she never got to see - so he sets off on a great adventure – flying his house away with all the balloons. This premise in the movie spoke to me about being active in our dreaming. That we can’t just sit around and wait for life to happen, for our dreams to fall in our lap - we have to take steps of faith and action to see those things accomplished in our lives – personal things, and God things.
The twist of the movie though was that after Carl set off on this great quest he then found his wife’s book of adventure and realized that even though they did not see their BIG dream realized, she had chronicled all of their lives and to her – their life together had become the dream – and she had been happy and satisfied. This gave Carl peace! This showed me that sometimes we don’t always realize what we have. And even in the everyday daily parts of our lives that sometimes we think are so mundane and ordinary – that really, we will look back and realize that those things are truly the extrodinary parts of our life.
Taking our kids to the park. Spending time with friends. Being up all night with a crying baby. Serving people who are in need. Teaching our children about God. Volunteering in the community. Showing kindness to our neighbours. Performing simple acts of kindness. Bandaging up a scraped knee. Listening to our children read to us at bedtime.
Simple things, that maybe we don’t think amount to much. But I think that when you combine them all – you can come up with a life of greatness. I know in my own life, I am a big dreamer – but God has been showing me that although the big dreams are fine – when I am at right now in my life as a child of God, a wife, a mom, a friend, a pastor – that is what is truly important. And all the big dreams in the world will mean nothing if I don’t give attention to the things in my life that really matter.
I go back to Jeremiah 29:11 – my life verse. And I trust and know that God’s plans for me (not my own plans) are good, and HE knows them - and that gives me peace. That can give us all peace – and allow us to be content right where we are!
Shelly
