This picture has got me all UNDONE.
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| c. Hallmark Channel, "When Calls the Heart", Season 5, Ep 10, 2018 |
Although a Janette Oke fan from many many years ago, I recently, and quite accidentally, started watching "When Calls The Heart" on Netflix. However, it quickly turned from being a one episode accident to a full fledged binge watch. I cleared 6 seasons in an unspecified number of days, thanks to Netflix and CBC Gem app, and now my heart will never be the same - mostly because I weathered the Jack and Elizabeth courtship, engagement, deployment, wedding, deployment, and death in a few short days.
Oh. My. Heart.
But this picture.
This is Elizabeth sitting on the property of her beloved Jack where their hopes were to build a home, a family, and a life together. She is reading a letter Jack wrote to her which she was only to receive if he ever didn't come home from his "Mountie Business". This letter is filled with all things romantic and sad and hard and hopeful, as it should be, and clearly, he didn't come home. She is gently and lovingly touching "JT + ET" etched inside a heart on the log. Cue full on cry. Thank you Hallmark Channel.
My heart hurts when I see this picture. I relive the sorrow and sadness so beautifully expressed by the actress (Erin Krakow). I have never cried over a show/movie/story line like I did over this one. Her pain is real and deep and devastating as her hopes for a future with Jack are shattered by the heroic death of her Mountie husband. I have not been able to shake this scene and the emotion of it, which is what a good story is meant to do. But my feeling into her pain was seeming a bit much, it was seeming a little weird if truth be told...maybe even silly. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't process this correctly, with a mature, "It's just a TV show. Those characters aren't real," mindset. Why was it sticking to me so, and causing such a physical ache within me that seemed unshakeable?
Because my pain wasn't really about Elizabeth and her life and Jack's death and the TV show. The depth of my pain was about me and my life. It was about the fact that I have been numb and without feeling for weeks now. It's about the fact that I have been busy and going through the motions and getting the next things done - on so many levels. It's about the fact that I haven't been feeling my own feelings or the feelings of God for me. I haven't let anything out and I haven't let anything in.
This picture, and the storyline preceding it, changed all that - eventually. It took the fierce grief of a well acted story, and a little bit of time, but the flood gates of my heart opened and I let it all out. A good ugly cry can be a good healing thing. I felt the gentle nudge of Jesus to embrace this pain that I was feeling, the emotion that didn't really seem to make sense yet was directing and shaping my current thoughts. So I embraced it...hard. I let it all go.
Then I let Him all in.
And I felt. I actually felt something. I felt something deep beyond the surface of the must do's of life. I felt beyond the next thing directly in front of me. I let myself sit in the depth of this pain because it was healing to my soul. Sadness can be hard and scary, but today it was healing and freeing. It brought me back to myself and closer to the person that God has created me to be.
I felt His smile - not at me but for me.
I felt His pleasure in me - for fully embracing the emotional being he has created me to be. God has created me to feel into the pain of others (real or on screen apparently!) and I have not been operating in that presence lately. I have not been letting that very real piece of me have a voice into my very own life.
We are all on a journey - sometimes darkness, sadness, discouragement, even loss, will be part of that journey. Allowing these emotions to come in will help us become people who can also better celebrate, encourage, laugh and live along the journey. Life takes feeling both. So I am being gentle with myself because I know it's a like a tightrope that I can quickly fall off of if I rush through this. But I am choosing to walk the rope, one step at a time. I am choosing to be true to God and who he has created me to be.
Who knew that "When Calls The Heart" would call my heart back? I am now a converted #heartie, although, admittedly a little late to the game (this story is from Season 5 in 2018). I am still recovering from my binge watching run through Hope Valley and its people, but am also eagerly anticipating the rest of the story - for them and for me.
