the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever.
~Psalm 136:8 (NIV)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
~John 3:16 (NIV)
About Up
I love the Pixar movie Up. Almost all Pixar films are incredibly good with story structure and pacing, and that’s essentially why they are so memorable. But with Up, I think the Pixar storytelling geniuses were in rare form.
The beginning of the film is a fast-paced five minutes through the young, married, and middle-aged lives of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen. It starts with them as kids who want to be explorers and ends with Carl at the age of 70 after Ellie has passed away. In the middle, they buy a house, work selling balloons and photos to kids at the zoo, and plan on starting a family.
There’s a point, right in the very center of that montage, showing Ellie Fredrickson’s devastation as the doctor shares they will be unable to have children. But the scene right after she finds out, the picture of that is so deep, I’m not sure many other viewers grasped it.
Face to the Sun
As Ellie Fredricksen grieves her infertility, she sits outdoors in her chair with her face to the sun. Her hair blows about in the wind, signifying how she releases her pain in the sunshine. She doesn’t moan or complain. She simply remains still in the breeze, the sun warming her cheeks, allowing her disappointment to just…be.
No words. Just her face to the sun.
Release Disappointment
Pain is a part of everyone’s story. Actually, the only thing that is different from one human to another, is how we choose to handle our pain and disappointment. Pain avoidance never works. Resignation doesn’t really work either – it can lead to a less than fulfilling life.
The movie scene I described above is an illustration of the only thing that works when you experience real disappointment. Acceptance.
Face to the Son
Where is God when it hurts? Where is our Lord when the test results are bad, when the loved one dies, when the child rebels, or when the job goes away? What are we to do with our ever-present disappointments, the ones we may or may not pray about? What should we do? We turn our faces to the Son.
In Mark 4:39, scripture states that Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves, saying, be still. Be still meant…be cool…hear my voice…settle down. When we turn our face to the Son, we allow his voice to fill our ears and we stop listening to the noise of the raging storms of disappointment. Instead, we grow quiet, we see His presence, and we settle down. And when we settle, we can begin to accept that though the storm may rage, nothing will remove His peace.
As people of faith, we must understand that though the storms may continue, with our faces to the Son, we will go on.