UP and AWAY...

‘UP' is not for the hard-hearted.

Within 15 minutes it just pounds on your heart like trying a make a piece of meat tender and soft, ready to absorb the juices during marination (there’s no such word). And before you know it, the hackneyed love story of growing old together once again succeeds in awakening the innate human desire for eternity. For eternal, enduring love. As you watch you secretly hope that Carl and Ellie will last and helplessly grief the passing away of a beloved wife to a faithful husband. At the moment, it made me wonder how anyone could possibly bring themselves to marriage if they could foresee such loss.

Just as you are still struggling with Carl to get by the days without Ellie, before you know it, the scene when you have to watch Carl watch his house fly away and disappear through the clouds… Those 10 seconds left me defenseless and swallowing my saliva, thinking “Is that me there?” I was expecting a, go in, giggle, laugh, tear maybe and that’s it. But the writers knew just what most people struggle with…

To Carl, the house encompassed all the golden dreams and fancies that he ever had. It was his solace from the cold world outside and he just had to go everywhere with it. So for him to watch his house fly away is asking him to put down all his emotional baggage from the past and all the unfulfilled regrets that he often looked back upon and giving all those UP.

Did that scene strike a chord in your heart?

How many of us carry our houses with us (till death do us part) that we find it strenuous to move onto new pastures in life?

I was lectured by Lloyd-Jones on foolish people harbouring on their vain regrets, who refuse to see that regrets are time-consuming and many times irrational. Yet they occupy such a large part of the burden we carry in life. When things fail, we run back to them and sob and lament that good times are gone for good. Then we get stuck in this state of spiritual depression.

Are we willing and ready to give up our past burdens and regrets, thus embracing that our Lord’s mercies are new every morning, helping us to hope for the better future?