Take A Load Off, Baby

We were one of the first in line to see the newly released "Eat, Pray, Love" or as I declared as we exited Eat, Pray, Snore. Oh, the anguish, oh, the drama over a woman who just wasn't happy in her boring life.

She took off for Italy and recreated a temporary family while relishing the incredible food. I can relate after taking cooking classes in Rome in December and basically chomping my way across Europe. Good stuff. America who?

Then she decided to try to work out her guilt over dumping her husband by going to India for wisdom. I have the same thought about that as I do when I pass a "Palm Reader" sign outside of a trailer on the highway.

"If you're so smart why are you living in a double wide?" Or as in the case of her neighborhood in India -- why isn't that wisdom helping the community to get those dying children out of the filthy streets?

So she chants some non-senseical words until her mind goes numb and she experiences placidness. Distance makes the heart grown calmer -- I guess. I know I always feel better about my life when I'm several continents away from my weedy garden.

With a new quieter spirit she heads to Bali. There in a house that looks like a Disney set sitting in the middle of the most beautiful lush landscape in the world she runs into Javier Bardem and this is a real stretch... falls in love.  Imagine that?

Paaaalease! Is this spirituality?

Last night we Tivo-d a Lifetime movie titled "Amish Grace". It is the true life story of the families whose daughters were murdered execution style in their little one room school house in Pennsylvania. The theme of this flick was forgiveness too. But this wasn't based on a bad hair day or a whim this was about true victims and their choices to either become bitter or to forgive.

Warning – it is a six Kleenex and Afrin nasal spray movie.

These Amish families didn't look to themselves. They didn't run away. They didn't become their own god. They were submissive to the God they had followed for years. There was a season of wrestling and questioning. It got gritty but in the end the same characters that were in the beginning scenes were in the closing scenes. Big difference.

Half way through Julia Robert's agonizing over her ability to forgive herself I couldn't take it any more. I turned to Papa Joe and said -- That girl needs Jesus.

Yes, I am that woman for whom the movie industry has spent fortunes to inspire me to keep my mouth shut in the theater. But I can only take so much.

The basis of our faith is He took on the forgiveness issue for us. He showed up in court and paid the fine for our traffic violation,

Jesus says "Cast all of you burdens on me for I care for you".

Or as the song goes:

Take a load off baby

Take a load for free

Take a load off baby

And put your load on me.