I saw some of the movie “Troy” yesterday. Of course, it was full of beautiful cinematography and fantastic, dramatic fight scenes.

But, the most moving thing was one quiet scene. It was in something Helen says to Paris:

Paris: Pearls from the sea of Propontus.
Helen: They’re beautiful, but I could never wear them, Menelaus would kill us both.
Paris: Don’t be afraid of him.
Helen: I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of tomorrow. I’m afraid of watching you sail away and knowing you’ll never come back. Before you came to Sparta, I was a ghost. I walked and I ate and I swam in the sea… but, I was just a ghost.
Paris: You don’t have to fear tomorrow… come with me!
Helen: Don’t play with me, don’t play.
Paris: If you come, we’ll never be safe. Men will hunt us, the gods will curse us, but I’ll love you. Until the day they burn my body, I’ll love you.

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She says, “I walked and I ate and I swam in the sea… but, I was just a ghost.”We’re all like that until we know true love, aren’t we? Just ghosts…shells of the ones we would be - should be - if we only knew real love.This is the love that Christ offers us - a love that leads us out of the ghostlands and into real life. And The Enemy will never stop hunting us, people will curse us - and Christ, but His love goes on…even beyond death.His love is what epics and novels and fairy-tales try so hard to capture and emulate. He is the standard.When we embrace the love of The One who made us, died for us, and knows us like no one else, it is then that we become real - we leave the ghostlands behind forever…Sometimes when we get discouraged, we can head back toward the past - the ghostlands - we can think we deserve nothing more. But this is a lie. We are loved and prized above all created things.

We - I - just need to remember this from time to time…

…so that we never return to only “walking, eating and swimming”, but really only being ghosts - merely shadows - of all that we were meant to be.

Love is always the way out…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRW7mJRuszA]

Peace.