Frozen…yet thawing..

This winter has been ridiculous.  SO freezing.  School has even been cancelled 3 times because the temps are so low.  The other day I thought it was actually pretty nice out and then I noticed it was only 17 degrees out.  WHAT?!  So needless to say, we have all be frozen lately…and the new Disney movie couldn't be more timely.  
 Frozen has been a HIT in our house.  We went to see the movie as a family and we all loved it so I had to buy the soundtrack.  Now, almost every day, you can hear the girls and I belting out "Let It Go" while dancing around the house.  Ryan just sits back and shakes his head (but we all know he really wants to sing his heart out too) :) 

Anyway, after I saw this movie, I couldn't help but wonder WHY it was such a great Disney movie.  It really is one of my favorites.  Frozen is everywhere and everyone is talking and/or singing about it.  I feel like one reason so people may love this movie is because to me, I feel like it tells the story of the Gospel, in disguise.  When I watch this movie, it's all I see,  so I just have to share!  (Warning - if you haven't seen the movie, don't read the rest of this blog…and…GO see the movie!) :) 

So the movie starts with Elsa realizing she has something inside of her that is powerful, scary, and hurts other people - the power to freeze.  So she tries to hide it, conceal it.  She locks herself in her room and out of society because she can't let anyone see her faults.   

I saw this and thought that that's kind of like all of us.  We all have something inside of us…this innate sinful nature…that is powerful, scary, and can often hurt people.  We sin.  We are selfish.  We are prideful.  Greedy.  Envious.  You name it.  And so, some of us, know this….and yet we don't want to let other people in and see who we really are (like she locked others out of her life). We try to cover it up by trying to be perfect.  We try to "Be the good girl you always have to be" like the song says, stuck in our own self-righteous sins.  We don't want people to know that we are broken..and so we live a lonely life, suffocating in our own shame, stuck in an image that is impossible to maintain.  

But then people start to discover who Elsa is…and that she is "broken" with mysterious power to freeze  anything and anyone she touches.  So..she embraces her frozen-ness, runs away to her own ice castle, she lets go ("Let It Go") of her "good girl" image... thinking she is now free.  She doesn't have to be limited by rules or by her fears and so Elsa embraces the cold…and lives alone in a kingdom full of ice.   

To me, I see this as how some of us also react to our sinful nature.  We realize we can't be "good" so we just forget it and rebel. We embrace the sinful life and live it up.  No rules, no boundaries, no guidelines.  We can do whatever we want and let it all go.  We think we are free.  But really, we are all alone, not realizing all the pain we are causing ourselves…or others. (She didn't realize she had frozen the entire kingdom of Arendelle). 

So THEN…Princess Anna pursues her sister….and meets her in her frozen castle.  Princess Anna so reminds me of Jesus.  Throughout the whole movie, Anna is wanting to KNOW her sister.  She wants to build a snowman…she sits at her bedroom door and knocks and knocks and doesn't give up.  Is this not what Christ does for us?  He pursues us and loves us so much EVEN WHEN we don't open the door for Him!  Even when we shut Him out of our lives and run away.  EVEN WHEN we sin and sin and sin again…He LOVES us!  SO AMAZING!  So Anna goes all the way up this frozen mountain because she loves her sister, and wants to save the world that is freezing.  Again, Jesus came all the way down to earth because he loves us..and wanted to save the world from sin.  

So Anna starts to freeze…along with the rest of the kingdom.  Arendelle was in a terrible winter storm and the whole kingdom was now overtaken by evil.  Prince Hans…who was once seen as a handsome prince and perfect fiancé for Princess Anna…turned out to be a sneaky, greedy, evil man who was out to kill Elsa and Anna.  (Reminds me of how tricky Satan can be) So when Hans is about to kill Elsa, who steps in her place?  Who dies so that she doesn't have to?  Anna!!   Because only "an act of true love will thaw a frozen heart!!"  This amazed me when I saw it the first time.  THAT is true love.  Giving of your life for someone who has shut you out…and someone who wouldn't let you in, who had a frozen heart.  But that is what Jesus did for us…He died in our place…so that we wouldn't have to go through Hell… He died so that we could live and WHEN we see what He has done for us, when we see the incredible sacrifice He made, we can only respond back in love to Him too!!  And the more we love Him, the more our hearts begin to thaw….and we can start to truly live.  We start to grow and flourish because we can be who He made us to be …and we are set FREE because of the love He has for us.  Everything in the whole kingdom began to thaw…the sun came out…and summer came.   That is what I hope for.  

So maybe you see the Gospel in the movie, maybe you just see a nice story about true love.  I know that whenever I step outside the rest of this winter, or whenever I see this movie, I will be reminded to thank God for saving me from the sin that lives in me.  I will pray that He continues to thaw my frozen heart as only His true love can do…and I will continue to hope in what is yet to come. And then one day we can say “For the first time in forever, He has changed this 'winter' weather..and everything will be all right. ”

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Cor. 5:17

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" Ezekiel 36:26