As It Should Be

Do you ever have a day in which every single thing you try to accomplish is a little bit (or much more!) off? That was my day today. Nothing catastrophic happened...just nothing went the way that I thought it would. 

One of those things was a parents' meeting this morning during the Sunday school hour. (Sunday School? Is that capitalized? I don't know these things...please advise.) I ended up only hearing the final seven minutes or so, but what I heard was something that I have tried to put into words, but not been able to before. Jim, our Minister to Children and Youth, was the speaker for this event, and he ended his talk by pointing out Hollywood's movie formula: 

Everything is wonderful in the beginning.
A problem arises and the wonderfulness is broken.
There is struggle. (And more struggle. And the struggle goes on.)
There is a stand-off between the good guy and the bad guy.
The good guy wins.
The ending is Happily-Ever-After.

His point? Hollywood film-makers present the gospel message in (just about) every single movie, and they don't even know they're doing it. And the thing that I have thought about before and never put into words very well is that there is this longing in each of us for that happy ending, and it's there for a reason. It is there because we are designed to long for it, we know how things ought to be, and we want more than anything for the world to be as it should.

I thought that his point was great. It's a great way to enter into conversation with someone about the gospel, even if it's just a start, or something to give them to think about. 

Today my happy ending might include a cleaned-up school room...I suppose I'll have to get busy for that to happen. But one day? Well, either we won't be so messy or we'll be much better about cleaning as we go along. Ha. A light-hearted joke, but, oh, how I long for all of it to be made right...