Movie Night

Well, I am going to try not to rant, here. For any ladies who have heard my word on this topic, they know, I CAN RANT!!!  

I recently went to the movies with my sisters, which is a rare and welcome treat. I love the movies, I love

 my sisters, tada! Guaranteed fun!  It only made sense that we would see a romance movie, seeing as there were three ladies, without husbands. So we did. And it was pleasant. It wa

s enjoyable 

because of the company and of course there were some pleasant things in the movie like scenery, etc. By the way we saw "Nights at Rodanthe" based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. I am probably gi

ven too much pre- info. I do that a lot. So why am I mentioning this move or movie nights in general?

Mostly because I want us ladies, married or not, to be thinking in a critical and discerning way about how we interact with media 

and culture. Not just romance movies, but let's camp there for now.

I want you to think of the last romantic movie you saw that honored or glorified marriage? Did you leave thinking, "I want to be in a life long, committed relationship with one man, for the rest of my life no matter what we do that hurts each other?" no, probably not. Because that is NEVER the message. Did i say NEVER?!?!?! Go ahead, pick one. Ok, I will since I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. Well, we can start with  

"Nights at Rodanthe-"  Beautiful scenery, romantic, charming moments, the beach... message: It is far more important that YOU be happy and don't "lose" your self (or your love of woodworking) than that you love the man you once said "till death do us part" to in a sacrificial and selfless way. Or that you dare hope that  what is broken can be redeemed. No, don't bother with all that because Richard Gere awaits you and he is a doctor and you guys are at the beach alone. So ignore any sense of guilt that might hold you back. That is only deception. Affair on!

Romantic, huh?

We can go back a few years, let's see...

 One of my personal favorites

"One fine day"- 2 divorced couples, worn out and frazzled by the single parent lifestyle, find solace in each other (well, ok maybe not solace but they attempt to sleep together one night). But oh, how sweet, at the end of the night as they are preparing to sleep together,  they find their 1st graders hanging out watching wizard of oz, oh so precious, like 2 lives so flawlessly becoming one. See, divorce and remarriage isn't as tough as it is cracked up to be!

 And my most recent UN favorite

"Definitely , Mabye"- I am not kidding when I tell you that this is considered a romance movie. A dad, in the midst of a divorce, relents to his struggling daughter one night and promises to tell her the story of how he met her mom, his soon to be ex-wife. The only trick is that he won't tell her which one is "mom" and he will include his other 2 love interests before marrying mom. She will have to decide on her own. So throughout the telling the writer clearly displays one as infinitely boring, and dull, while the other 2 rise up as dynamic love interests. It becomes clear which one is the "love of his life." Big surprise... it's not his wife!!!! No she is the boring one. And we so do  pity this poor man who clearly got it wrong and married the wrong girl that we feel like the daughter does (not torn up and shattered that her parents and the family is shattered into unmendable pieces) but excited that the old girlfriend still lives in town.. and wait, dad, you and I can go to her apartment together!! (While mom is at home crying her eyes out over her marriage ending... oh, right that stuff can't happen. It's supposed to convince us that divorce is easy). So, where were we... going to the apartment together because, and I quote 9 year old daughter " dad, I just want you to be happy." Well, news flash folks, getting the right girl won't make dad happy. Only Jesus will. And I kid you not, the ending is dad, daughter and old girlfriend reuniting in an alleyway outside her apartment, with warm fuzzy music and lighting of course. Otherwise we would not believe that broken lives and betrayal and years of therapy and shattered hope is sweet or romantic. And yes, the title even hints at how we should look at marriage. Definitely! ... oh, wait, maybe she isn't the one.

SOOO, what I am trying to say here is that we need to watch movies discerningly, as woman especially. We are led heavily by our emotions. And if you see it as just light entertainment, without being on guard, you can very easily be buying lies that are straight from hell. And when your marriages hit hard times, I guarantee you that Satan is going to bring these perspectives back up into your mind. And unfortunately, it is then that we will see how easily we have been influenced by the world. Not to mention the tv shows that glorify singleness, divorce, infidelity. You simply cannot be married to the same man for long, especially not with children, and be happy. We call that "Desperate Housewives." 

When we all get together to watch movies, let's be critical and discerning about what we watch, and who we are watching it with. If there is a girl in the group who's marriage is struggling, lets not show her a movie that tells her if she could simply just go away to the beach and find richard gere, all the pain and struggling could be over and life would be "fixed."  This is NOT encouragement. Because this is what Jesus said to us and I have rarely seen this in a movie.

1 Cor 13

verse 4

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on it's own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with THE TRUTH. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all thing, endures all things."

 Now, that would be a good movie.

 I will save Oprah, magazines and books for another time, but ladies, let us not be unwise. Let us live lives that don't open up the floodgates of our hearts and minds, the things which lead so many of our decisions in life, to satan's lies and deception. It is most often not obvious stuff, it is the subtle lies that if we don't battle with the truth of God's word

 will tear us down. 

The time before this that my sister's and I went to the movies, we were trying to decide between two movies and we asked a couple girls next to us. They recommended one  but added the warning, "but it also kinda sucks because it makes you want a man who doesn't even exist out there." We assured them that we were all married to those men and they do exist. 

So tell me ladies, do you notice this pervasive message in our romance culture? Does a girlie movie night often make you love your husband more or less afterwards?