TRUE LOVE

The temperatures are soaring in Texas.  We have been seeing the thermometer  reaching 100+ degrees for days and no rain to cool off the evenings.  So yesterday, when we wanted to celebrate a good friend's birthday, we chose the coolest choice.  A breakfast brunch at the Original Pancake House and a matinee movie.

Our movie choice was Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts.  As enjoyable as our day was, I think the movie left us all lacking.  Not to give to much of the story away in case you may want to go see it even after my lackluster review, I will try to share it.  Okay, maybe I will tell more than you want to hear.  Please forgive me.  

Liz(Julia Roberts) was a travel writer who was on assignment in Bali where she met a 9th generation "medicine man" who prophesied her future that she would have one short love and one long love.  MY WARNING BELL:  BE CAREFUL WHO YOU TURN TO FOR YOU FUTURE AND WHAT WORDS YOU LET SETTLE OVER YOU AS TRUTH.

She went home and soon ended her marriage and began an affair with another man all the while thinking about the words the medicine man spoke over her.  The new boyfriend also was into a eastern religion that involved a lot of meditation and clearing of the mind so you could become anything you want to become.  MY WARNING BELL:  BE CAREFUL WHO YOU ARE WORSHIPING.  THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUE GOD AND THE ONLY WAY TO COME TO HIM IS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.

Liz woke up one morning and realized she wasn't very happy and decided to take a year to find herself.  She planned to spend time in Rome to eat which she did.  She enjoyed pasta and friendship.  Learned the language and shared traditions.  She left their feeling satisfied.  That is until she arrived in India where those feelings got lost when new circumstances arrived.  She struggled with the help of Richard who was trying to find his own way.   The movie alluded to the need to forgive and this is a truth, but concentrated more on what you had to do to achieve this such as clearing your mind.  She began to meditate and felt she was happy.  MY WARNING BELL: BE CAREFUL WHEN IT' MORE ABOUT YOU THAN IT IS GOD.  ENTER THROUGH THE NARROW GATE.  FOR WIDE IS THE GATE AND BROAD IS THE ROAD THAT LEADS TO DESTRUCTION AND MANY ENTER THROUGH IT.  BUT SMALL IS THE GATE AND NARROW IS THE ROAD THAT LEADS TO LIFE, AND ONLY A FEW FIND IT.

Finally, she arrived in Bali, where she would complete her journey to find herself.  Instead, she found a man who loved and adored her.  The movie almost ended with her leaving him out of fear of loosing herself.  She returned to the medicine man she had met years ago and he said in order for her to truly be balanced she would loose herself in love.  She immediately took this advise and ran after the man.  MY WARNING BELL:  NO MAN, NO WOMAN, NO CHILD, NO JOB, NO ADVENTURE WILL EVER SATISFY YOU UNLESS YOU FIRST COME TO GOD.   THEY MAY SEEM TO WORK FOR A PERIOD OF TIME BUT AGAIN AND AGAIN YOU WILL COME UP EMPTY UNLESS YOU  SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND  THEN EVERYTHING ELSE WILL BE ADDED.

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True Love fills you to overflowing.  We were designed by God to love.  This story did not touch my heart this way.  The writers definitely missed something in this story and I think it was because everything was about Liz's happiness and fulfillment and nothing how she could love the other person.  

I will close with a helpful guideline for love right out of the bible.

   Love never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
   Love doesn't strut,
   Doesn't have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
   Isn't always "me first,"
   Doesn't fly off the handle,
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
   Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
   Puts up with anything,
   Trusts God always,
   Always looks for the best,
   Never looks back,
   But keeps going to the end.