marley & me

LIFE.

 

On a recent date night, Tim and I proceeded to seriously overdose on sugar and snuggle in for a movie that, for me, has long held a strange significance. We both bawled our eyes out.

...Okay, so I did most of the crying.

 

On the surface, Marley & Me is a movie about a couple and their dog, Marely, a labrador who is ever exhuberant and mischevious from puppyhood... to the end.  Somehow this film encapsulates more. What was maybe intended to be a story about the trials and hilarity of being a pet owner, does well to nearly capture the poignant and fleeting human experience. May be a stretch, but yes, it does.

 

Life is short. And life is a journey of the expected...and expected unexpecteds.

 

There is a moment in the movie, when the husband narrates life on fastforward: He writes a column for his newspaper, he has lunch with his friend, dinner with his wife, he chases his dog, he goes to the beach, he goes to work, he has a birthday, he picks up his dog's poop, he goes to work, et cetera.
 

And so we...

 Put on deodorant, eat, work, call a friend, read a book, feed the cat, water the banana tree, check the temperature and watch our breath fog up the window, trek through the snow (or traffic), drive to here and there, try to be as fit as jillian michaels, fight with our friends, love our friends, miss our distant family and deceased grandparents, play with the cat, turn up the music, cry, eat some more, miscommunicate, work, sleep, watch hulu, drink coffee, brush our teeth, check facebook and pintrest, go to work, and (yes, I have to mention it) do the dishes.

 

Like one big runon sentence, days pass and bam...we find ourselves a little bit older.

 

LIFE.

 

The movie includes the couple's pursuit of the American Dream, the grief of miscarriage, the stress of finances with unplanned children and morgages.  There have been so many moments (and my friends will laugh at this) that I have declared to be distinctly "Marely-&-Me-moments". These are the moments when different seasons of life seem to collide.  Driving down the highway and when stuck in traffic...catching glimpses of the woman putting on her makeup, of the grandma in the backseat with a toddler, of a young guy blasting his music and smoking a cigarette, of a truker starring with fatigue into the sea of brake lights ahead of him, of a couple yelling, of the couple holding hands and laughing. The moment when you see your friend walk down the aisle with her father, committing herself to her new husband. When you say goodbye to loved ones when you move across the country. When your nephew hits a home run. When watching people in airports; a mother frantically pushing a stroller, a middle aged daugher pushing her elderly father in a wheelchair, a solider saying goodbye to his new wife, a child throwing a tantrum over a stupid stuffed animal. The diagnosis you didn't want to recieve. The accident that should have never happened.
You get the idea.

 

LIFE.

 

Dear friends, may we embrace it.

May we treasure it and not get so completely distracted by routine that we miss the crazy, simple beauty each day holds (and each colliding and imperfect season). The sweet freshness of new snow on spruce trees. The joy of a baby's sleepy smile. The warmth of a husband's hand. The familiar ringtone that sings when a friend is calling. The warmth of sweatpants and coffee mugs. 

Cherish the Marley &Me moments! 

 

And more so, might we know in newness, the life that Christ graciously offers us, now and forever. Might we learn to worship him as we will forever, in the heartbreaking, in the delightful, in the whatever that unfolds for you in the today.

 

"Don't you see," I sniffled. "This movie...it's like life."

To which Tim replied, "yes, babe, but this, this you and me, this here and now, this is life."

 

Embrace it.