Hope

I sat down this evening to watch one of my all time favourite films, 'Hope Floats'.

This film is not well known, at all. It's highly under-rated in terms of the theme and the acting.

I've seen this film many a time, and always used to watch it with my mum at home. But only today's sitting of it has made me reflect on it.

We see the main character (played by Sandra Bullock) on a Jeremy Kyle/Jerry Springer type of show where it is revealed to her that her husband has been having an affair with her best friend. She is obviously distraught. She leaves Chicago and returns to her home town with her daughter. After wallowing in grief, many tears and arguments with both her mother and daughter, she finds a job and gets back on her feet. It all appears to be going well - a handsome cowboy [Justin] from her high school days likes her, and she's happy. Until it is realised that she still thinks about her husband despite his infidelity and the fact he doesn't love her. She gets drunk, her daughter hates her, her husband doesn't love her and this guy has left indefinitely. After this, a brief shining moment when her mother explains to Sandra's daughter about the importance of family and love. That night, her mother suffers a stroke and dies. At the funeral, her husband asks for a divorce and her daughter wants to leave with him. Everything has just fallen apart in her life.

Yet, in these circumstances, she still has hope. Her daughter and herself are reunited. Her husband leaves and shows his daughter that he is doing the leaving, not Sandra. And she realises through these circumstances that she loves Justin. At the end, we see a family and she narrates...

'Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will...'

This is the ultra-paraphrased version of events...and it is worth a watch to fully grasp the intensity of the situations.

This story sort of reminds me of the story of Job, a bit. He loses everything. Absolutely everything and it is shown how through his circumstances, he still relies on God wholly. How does he do this? Just now I've been thinking about 1 Thessalonians and how we should be joyful in all circumstances and what it would look like. This film [despite it not being a Christian film] does give some good advice. She lost nearly everything and yet had hope. As Christians, we should have hope in any circumstance...hope in the resurrection, and we can place our hope and trust in Jesus. In the film, she doesn't do this, but she still has hope. It is hope that we should have day to day - being joyful doesn't mean being happy all the time - but it means rejoicing that God has a better plan for us, and having that hope of salvation. There are moments in our lives that are unhappy, and it is right for us to feel upset about them - but having this hope we have in Jesus is life-changing - we don't see unhappy times in life as the end, but we can look to the future and rejoice that God is in control and is truly sovereign.