Legend of the Guardians

Last night Matt and I watched "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole". It was beautiful, it was mystical, it was magical, it was good versus evil, and it was Australian! As the owls began to speak in the movie I said to Matt, "They sound Australian". The next animal they ran into was a Tasmanian Devil! The movie takes place in Tasmania, who knew! I've really wanted to see this movie for a while, but I was even more excited when I found out where they were.

I absolutely loved this movie, and encourage you to watch it. There were so many fantastic parts in the movie, but one quote in particular stuck out to me. There is an old owl talking to the young, lead owl about being a hero (in a sense). He says, "This is what it looks like when you've actually fought in battle; it's not glorious or beautiful, or even heroic. It's merely doing what's right, and doing it again and again". He's talking about the good owls fighting against the bad owls, but in the grander scheme he's talking about the fight between what's good and what's evil. In one sense, this could not be truer. Fighting against injustice for the cause of good in this world is not glamorous, it's a dirty and never ending job. You're often not thanked, and you often feel like you're working in vain. Satan is tricky, and is quite good at making things seem hopeless at times. However, I do believe that good will always triumph over evil (when it's all said and done). The journey to get there might not be glittering with all things wonderful, but the the end result will be awesome.

However, I see another aspect to this whole "fighting in battle" thing. I firmly believe that God has exceptional, exciting, fantastic things in store for every single person who seeks them. The problem is, our world has disillusioned us to what is in fact exceptional, exciting, and fantastic. We think life is boring unless we've made it onto a reality television show. Don't believe me? Then why do you watch them? Something or someone has led us to believe that the people on those shows have something spectacular happening in their lives because they're on television. I hate to break it to you, but that's just not the case. Now I won't deny that I think the fact that I'm moving to Australia is a pretty stinking cool adventure. Although we're making a lot of sacrifices and this journey is going to be heart breaking and horrible at times, I can honestly say that I think this is an exceptional call that God has given my husband and me. However, I look around and see how other people are doing exceptional things all the time and might not realize it. Take, for example, my husband. On Saturday we took our dog to the dog park, only for him to be called out to a grass fire a few moments after. Since I was with him, we drove to the fire together. I sat in the car for about thirty minutes while he helped put out a fire that had taken over a portion of land very near to someone's house. From the outside his job did not look spectacular, he was pointing water at the ground to put out a fire and spent time talking with the owner of the land who was trying to dump buckets of water on the ground to put the fire out. However, the job my husband and his fellow firefighters did was exceptional. It was dirty, hot, and slow, but it kept a man's house from burning down. Had they not come, the fire could have spread to other houses and destroyed other people's lives. I don't tell my husband enough, but his job as a volunteer firefighter is exceptional. Or how about this? I know a girl who was convicted that young adults in Africa deserved a decent education. She and her friends carried change cans around and collected money for months, until they had enough to send at least one young adult to school. That might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but they changed a person's life in another country that they've never met. That is exceptional.

I think sometimes people give up on trying to do the right thing because they just can't see it making a difference. I would like to encourage you to do what's right, do it again and again, and trust that what you're doing is exceptional.