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The Second Best Exotic Marigold Epiphany

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

sbemh

“There’s no present like the time” (a great line from The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel).

My life hasn’t gone the way I planned. In fact, for most of my life there really hasn’t been a plan. My first job when I moved to the Nashville area fell into my lap in a stroke of providence and blessing.

I can say that while I haven’t always gotten what I wanted, I find I always got what I needed just when I needed it.

Tonight, I saw the Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the sequel to . . . you can probably figure out the title to the first movie. It was just as good and clever as the first.

I remember when I heard the line that I quoted, my brain wanted to reverse it and have it say, “There’s no time like the present.” That’s how I’ve always heard it and that’s what I hear when people are wanting you to act NOW and buy NOW and decide NOW.

But truly, there is no better present than the time you’re given. There’s no better present than the present. You only get one today and never a do-over on yesterday (unless you happen to live inside the movie Groundhog Day).

So take it all in. Be sure to pay attention. For me, it means noticing the beautiful cloud formations in the sky on the way to work and actually paying attention to the scenery on the drive. It means stopping for a moment to breathe a prayer along the lines of “Thank You, God, for this life, and forgive me if I don’t love it enough.”

I’m still learning never to take anything (or anyone) for granted. I hope I wake up tomorrow, but I can’t guarantee that I will because it’s not promised. The same goes for all my family and friends. Even my cat Lucy.

Savor your life while you live it. Don’t waste your time during the week pining away after the weekends and holidays and summer vacations. Each day is a gift that is good for only 24 hours and has a no-return policy. Open it.

 

Real Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’d like to preface this by confessing my lack of expertise in this area, but here goes.

I think true love doesn’t always look like it does in the movies.

It’s not as dramatic and there’s usually no orchestra playing a grand theme in the background when it happens.

There may or may not be butterflies and it may or may not happen in an instant, though I’m inclined to believe that the best of true loves happen gradually over time as friends realize that they are in love with each other.

Sometimes, I think people miss true love because they expect it to be like it is in those rom-com movies and in those Nicholas Sparks books and in all those love songs.

I’m not saying that movie-love never ever happens outside of the movies, but more that it isn’t the norm.

Love isn’t a feeling as much as it is an act of the will. A choice. A commitment to seek the welfare of the beloved regardless of whether you feel like it or not. And the feelings will come and go. You will probably fall in and out of love many times but you can always choose to love consistently through it all. Sometimes you have to act loving and do loving things before the loving feeling comes.

As I understand it, love isn’t easy. Love takes work. It takes dying to your own needs sometimes and putting the other’s needs above yours. It takes dying to your ways of doing things and your perceptions about how those things ought to be done.

I think it’s okay to watch those Hallmark movies or listen to those love songs as long as you don’t confuse them for reality. Real love isn’t as flowery or poetic but in the end, it’s something far more grand.

Never forget that real love led a Man to a Cross to be tortured and bleed and die for you and me. Real love said that no price was too high to win your heart. To win my heart.

That, my friends, is real love.