Last night I watched Awakenings, an older film from 1990 long been residing on my list of “I’d like to watch that someday, but its not to pressing right now.”
The movie tells an emotive story of a shut-in doctor, scared to engage with those around him. Taking a job caring for patients whom have been comatose for decades after surviving an encephalitis epidemic, proves first to challenge these tendencies. His gentleness and care with the patients tells of a deeply sensitive and caring man isolated by social insecurity. Upon trying an experimental drug his patients begin to awake from their coma-like-state hardly aware they had been gone. The gift of life, the simple things – taking a walk, dancing, singing are celebrated as they stir to life. The greatest awakening though happens in the doctor, who begins to live. To risk and engage with those around him.
Watching the movie provided an almost out-of-body experience, almost like watching the past years of my life. The doctor and I share some of the same story, a heart isolated but rescued to begin beating once again.
I was attempting to clean my room this morning when I came across a letter I wrote myself about 3 years ago at Ignite:
“God, you rescued my heart this conference. The process you began months ago by showing me the hardness of my heart and how closed off it has become has peaked here and now. Thank you for drawing me out and revealing wounds in my life and reasons for the state of my heart. You’ve brought me to the point where I am so completely frustrated with being emotionally cold to those around me and alone that I have no choice but to change. Hurting is at least feeling so at this point I’m ready to start the painful journey of healing. I want to live from a heart fully alive.”
Ignite closing reflections 2004
Three years have passed since my pen bled those words, life has taken me many places since then, but God’s leading has never been so apparent. This road is one of heart rescue.
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Now playing: Eisley – Brightly Wound
via FoxyTunes
