How Frozen Made Me Fall in Love With Jesus, and Snowmen.

So I’ve officially decided that writing a BOOK about *difficult life* would be so much easier than writing a BLOG about it. Why? Because - some of the things I’m writing about still come up, just when I thought they were supposed to be done coming up. If you write a book, you get to write the “Life Crash” Chapter one time, and then move on to The Rest of the Story. Can I tell you how much more fun The Rest of the Story is to write? It’s the happy part. But the Crash Chapter? Hmm, not so much fun, right? I’d prefer to never re-read or re-write that one, thank you. I’ve dealt with that - I grieved it, I forgave it, I processed it, I apologized... whatever it was, I’m done with it. I surrendered it to God and I don’t want to think about it anymore. Moving onnn....

But a blog isn’t a book. People can start reading on Chapter [Post] Eighteen, and that’s cool. So sometimes you have to summarize somewhat so they’re not lost. No big deal. Cause I’m over it. I’M OVER IT.

And I am. But then, sometimes, I’m not. Sometimes for absolutely no apparent reason at all, it’s like it all happened yesterday. The most random trigger can make me remember something from years ago that I thought I had completely forgotten... and I’m there again. The anger floods in, or pain or humiliation, or shame, and then the doubts whisper...

See. Who are you fooling? It’s hopeless. You’re not ever going to be okay.

**********

Rewind with me for a moment back to winter 2013. Ellie had been born by then, things were “okay enough”, and life was getting normal-ish. Good counseling has a way of making your tragedies and chaos temporarily bearable. There’s just enough courage created to acknowledge some of those silver linings that exist, and wow, there’s hope in the tank after all. You’re running on fumes, but hey, at least you’re not stalled for once - that’s new. But progress is so fragile - dealing with the loss of Oliver, and now a newborn felt like an emotional marathon I was not trained for.

On this particular day, I remember feeling like if I have to take just ONE MORE freaking emotional step.... oh man, just don’t make me do it. My youngest two were napping simultaneously - which never happened - so I decided to do nothing on the couch with television involved. I needed something happy that required nothing from me, and couldn’t trigger me to think about life’s problems. Dumbness is what I was after - Laurel and Hardy falling down the stairs would’ve been the perfect kind of thing.

But we don’t have cable, and I couldn’t find anything surface-level enough in our movie collection. All our movies were DEEP, cause that’s all I’m into wasting two hours over. But now? I wanted a Madagascar-type vibe. Oh! That’s it! Kid movies - minions, talking animals, PERFECT. There can’t be anything triggering about that...

The only one I could find fast enough (simultaneous nap time is gold every second) was Frozen. It was still unwrapped and unwatched even though we’d had it for weeks. Of course I’d already seen “Let It Go” re-sung by 8 million people on Facebook, and even though the song was cute, the whole population freaking out over it made me not want to be that person. And then there was the eBay story of the parent who NEEDED a Frozen doll or costume or whatever, and was willing to pay thousands for it because their child MUST, LIVE. (Okay, I was trying not to judge, but the struggle was real there. I mean, come on, THOUSANDS?! Isn’t that not wise?) Also - in hindsight honesty - I was bitter at the whole “Let it Go” idea in the first place I think. I felt like I LET GO of my things, and they just followed me around anyway. “Let it Go” is a cliche that doesn’t work. DOESN’T.

So, there was all that: I was boycotting the movie because in my mind I was making a great big stand over dumbness. But now my stand was over, cause dumbness sounded nice. And [because it matters] I only bought it because my Mom told me it was artistically amazing (I’m a nerdy painter) and it was on sale at Target. IT WAS ON SALE.

So now weeks later, I put it in, and started folding laundry while watching - fully prepared to roll my eyes a million times at the cliche-ness of it all. But then... OH, MY.

My 32-year-old self was riveted, and my numb heart came alive long enough to make me cry like a weird person that might even buy a doll over it (for regular price). Talented people and captivating thematics have always been a part of Disney’s trademark, and every now and then their movies have depth - but this was different. I don’t like cartoon movies this much, and I definitely don’t cry over them; most of the time I have a mental list of complaints about things PG movies don’t need to have, and I had ZERO complaints this time. Just tears.

Glad that I was watching it alone, I quickly chocked my “over-emotion” up to the fact that OH MY GOSH, sister-love broke the ice for once, and not Prince Charming. YES. And yay that she had a weird thing going on that she thought made her freakish, cause I have less impressive weird things about me I hide. Soooo, that’s it. Moving on. I cried tears that apparently needed to be cried, I felt better, and... onward. I downloaded the soundtrack as the final credits were rolling, cause that’s normal. Piano music too. And then nap time was over and it was The End of my Frozen escapades, good times though they were.

But then it wasn’t The End. Later that night once I had the kids in bed I turned on the soundtrack. I played “Let it Go” first of course, which made cleaning up the kitchen more fun. Then some of the other songs, until I meandered around to “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” - which is for sure way more lighthearted than “Let it Go”, right? Sweet, fun, and...

Um, I’m crying again. Like, sobbing. Over a snowman song?

You know how it goes - Anna is knocking at the door, and then bouncing around the castle. Her sweet pure heart just wants to play, enjoy life, have fun. She just keeps knocking and asking and knocking and asking, and she’s not giving up. She comes back again and again, just as peppy as ever. Her sweet face and exhuberant demeanor - full of expectation and hope... full of life. I mean, it’s her only sister in there after all. And then?

The music changes. The boat that holds everything goes down. The black cloth comes down over the family portrait, and then suddenly... she’s an adult. She’s alone. And she’s not peppy anymore - her personality, gone. She still asks to build a snowman because it’s all she knows to say, and...

“They say, ‘Have Courage’, and I’m trying to... what are we going to do?”

Standing in the kitchen that night, years ago, without the movie on the screen in front of me to fill my thoughts, I could see my own boat going down. From eighteen to twenty three, before I ever got married I had storms I couldn’t battle, and things happened I used to wish I could erase from every part of my brain. Things I buried because they ruined me. The times I screamed at God, the relationships that tore me apart, the struggle for being enough. And then the specific horrible memories flashed that I hadn’t thought of in years, a couple in particular that I had blocked out on purpose. It was the most horrible time in my life... and then...

It’s time to be an adult. You should just know. Nope, there’s no manual, no anything. There’s brokenness, and you just got married to another brokenness, and there’s kids who push the brokenness buttons and situations that just plain make your ship sink. And good luck with all that cause you’re an adult now.

“What are you going to do?”

So many times I sat against a doorway too, desperately thinking that in those years. I was trying to have courage back then, I WAS trying. I listened to that song over and over that night in the kitchen, just grieving it all- finally. That wasn’t the life I planned, I had no idea how I could’ve prevented it all, and I didn’t want that to be my story. There’s things in that period I hadn’t told anyone. But the problem now, was that it was hitting all too hard, because I felt like I was there again. Oliver, marriage, everything... it was just the black cloth going down. It’s going to go down again. And I’m going to be standing there, having no idea what to do, again. Just having to be an adult and go on. What am I going to do?

But something started shifting the longer I thought about it. I hadn’t wanted to think about those things for so long because it was all horrible, all ugly... or was it? Now my perspective was different. I had a relationship with God that wasn’t based on being good enough or what others thought about me. So suddenly I could see Him in those dark days WITH ME, not as the God that had ABANDONED ME. It was like rewriting my history with the most beautiful companion inserted in. Instead of all the dark ugly memories pouring in, it was a bunch of amazing addendum’s to those, cancelling out the dark with things I had never noticed before. People, coincidental things, amazing things. But I wasn’t looking for God back then cause I was sure He wasn’t interested in me. Now, I know the truth. His shadow over my life, and every life, is big. That was the night, after watching dumb Frozen, that I fell so hard in love with God and what He’s done, that I just can’t NOT BE LOUD anymore.

I battled hard things a lot this week. I haven’t arrived. Sometimes I don’t feel like God is in it with me. I just want life to be SIMPLE and happy all the time, and certain. I don’t like GOING THROUGH. But oh my gosh, how deeply I feel loved because of things I had to go through already. I want more falling in love with God again, it’s just hard to wait until the storm is over to see more clearly.

Yep. All that from a dumb kids movie. Don’t judge me like I judged people before I knew :). And now I'm back to thinking blogging is okay because I get to think about my ugly, and God's being IN IT, a whole bunch.

********************

(This song. I played it allllll week on the piano and sang my heart out over and over and over. Can't even handle it - it's the most beautiful song ever written, that's all.

God is so amazingly good.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91KliTa1ksY