I was not expecting the storyline of “Saving Mr. Banks.” I thought it would be a lighthearted tale.
God leads you here and there and you smash into His Reality in the oddest places. The message of the movie, the real story of the story was profound. And for me, it was terribly painful.
At the end of the movie I could only cry. And cry. John said, why? And I said, I don’t know. The story behind the story – what John calls the backstory – so struck my heart and spirit that I had no words for it. For a long while, it was bigger pain than my mind could sort.
Lately, I have been seeing the great tragedy of humanity. It’s a disaster we all live in, both in what is done to us and in what we do to others. Even now I have tears of shock and sorrow to glimpse the real state of our human condition – universal, absolute. Every person is a walking destruction: in history, in guilt, in action. And we perpetuate our tragedy onto others. We infect each other with our sorrow.
Oh, the size of it – the mess of it. The evil of it! Our sin from Eden, the insanity of living independently of God!
And we don’t have a clue. We don’t know who we are or what we desecrate with our tragedy. We aren’t aware of the underlying hate that motivates us to punish our world for our suffering. So we keep the tragedy ever spreading.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is
exceedingly perverse and corrupt and
severely, mortally sick! Who can know it
[perceive, understand, be acquanted
with his own heart and mind]?
Jeremiah 17: 9 Amplified
(emphasis mine)
I think this is what I have been seeing. The corruption of humanity, the wickedness of our common heart – blind, reckless and ‘severely, mortally sick.’ Cain murderers, we.
Life is one long heartbreak. Over you. About myself.
So I finally could find some few words.
There are two tragedies:
The terrible tragedy that happens to us
is not as great as the tragedy
of what we do to ourselves.
And . . . to those closest by.
What a miracle of God that such wicked hearts could even be changed by the free gift of a New Heart!
What a hideous death the Savior experienced to pay for such hidden, unending, infectious corruption!
Now my tears are of wonder at such a Savior and
“such great a salvation as has now been offered to us.” (Hebrews 2:3)
There is one word that writes a happy ending to the story of our tragic humanity and of “Saving Martha.”
Forgiveness.
Now there’s nothing to do in life but live thanking Him. . .
Jesus last words ring constantly in my ears: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing…
This is all of our reality ….we are all Gomer
Thank you John
“I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt He did not owe. I needed someone to wash my sins away. And now I sing a brand new song, “Amazing Grace”. Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay.” This was all I could think about as I was reading this. Thank you Martha. Thank You Jesus
Oh precious Martha, thank you for delivering these words. Not just the words of this blog, but your daily devotionals and your new booklet Kingdom Children are the instruments God is using to perform some open heart surgery on me. And I find your conclusion is mine too, all it can do is live thanking Him. I thank Him for you, and for John, and for Jennifer. You bring blessing to me every morning.
I had such a pain experience last night seeing the monster in me that has been used to protect myself
Instead of bring broken and trusting God to keep me safe. Terrified of the truth of my own reality in
Light of who I wanted myself to be. The pain is to see the pain I have inflicted on those closest to me.
It is scary how blind I am. The only saving grace is that I am seeing and there is a Savior Jesus Christ who
Will not forsake me when I turn to His love.
Thank you for this message of reality…of not only pain, but of truth, hope, promise, and unmatched love.
…thought I’d share…I laugh at myself now ( not that it was by any means funny ) but I was grateful that my sweet husband waited in the darkness of the theater until the very last credit rolled off the big screen when we went to see “Saving Mr. Banks”. His patient love and consideration gave me time to rid my face of the tears I didn’t want to discuss. What a gift!
Yes, it is true… forgiveness.