Thanks Forrest

I've been watching the movie Forrest Gump in chunks when I can find the free time, because we'll be walking through that movie next week at Moto as apart of our movie series. I can't get over how powerful the movie is and what the world would look like if we had more people living with the kind of love and selflessness that Forrest lives with. My heart has been softened to stories of people around me that feel unaccepted, unappealing, and left out because they feel they lack as a person or have a lack of. This morning I listened to the radio and they were talking about some sort of treatment that helps people either grow taller than they were originally expected to grow, or they will just grow quicker than they usually would. I can't help hurt for the brokenness in people. A girl said her reason for trying the treatment was because she felt it was her lack of height that kept her from getting invited to all the best parties and all the cool things that the popular people were participating in. Another guy shared of how he was picked on for being so small and he just wanted to grow quicker so as not to be picked on. Every story was about people feeling inadequate with how they are or how if they had just a little more height they would have more, or they would be more. With this there are two sides to this story; one is the hurt and brokenness people feel in who they are or who they are not. And then the fact of everyone else who heaps on the pressure to be more by their teasing, ridiculing, mocking and lack of love and acceptance.

I'm sure, like me, you have found yourself on both ends of this dilemma and both are sadly far from what God has called us to. I know that God did not make a mistake in creating me as I am and I desire to move closer and closer to becoming who He has designed me to become, both in how I look at myself and how I look at others. I think one of the most beautiful things about Forrest Gump, is that he sees people for who they are rather than for what they are not, which leads to a love that does not discriminate and it does not hesitate to be poured out. Throughout the movie Gump is called stupid and looked as less than and more times than not, it is because he puts others first, loves without an expectation of a return and is confused why others think what he does is less than the norm. Today my heart is so heavy and yet hopeful, because God restores, recreates and changes all that is broken and incomplete. May I live in Him and through Him today so that people may experience healing and wholeness in our broken world.

Wallace D.