the neverending story

we recently started Netflix at our house and it has been awesome to be able to have movies and tv shows to watch instantly without having to go down to the movie store to try and find what i am looking for. well, there are a few movies from my childhood that i have been finding on it. some of these movies were a huge part of my childhood memories....like "the dark crystal" "transformers" "young sherlock holmes" just a bunch of movies that i can remember watching and having them fuel my imagination for adventures!! one in particular was a movie that i would watch over and over again and it was "the neverending story" does anybody else remember this movie? Well, i found it on Netflix and added it to my queue and the other day my son judah and i watched it. he's now 6 and half and the first time i watched it i was close to that age. we both sat on the couch while his little sister was taking a nap and watched this movie. it had been a while since i had seen it but i still found myself repeating all the lines and humming along to the music (and i realized how far movies have come in special effects because these were terrible) and i still got caught up in the fantasy of this movie. My son Judah is the exact same. his imagination is incredible and he reminds me of me so much that it's kinda freaky....

anyways, there was always a part in this movie that when i was a child always made me angry or upset and it was when Atreyu was realizing that his quest to defeat the NOTHING was nearly impossible and he had lost all his friends and he is confronted by a huge black wolf named Gmork! this is the same wolf that had been tracking him to kill him through the entire movie. watching this as a child, i never really knew why this upset me i just knew that it did. perhaps it was because this was a freakin huge wolf with big old fangs and no kid would say they actually like that, but as a i watched it with my son i paid attention to the conversation between Atreyu and Gmork. Atreyu was so frustrated that he couldn't defeat the NOTHING because he couldn't get to the boundaries of Fantasia (yes, i know alot about this movie and story so don't make fun). Gmork informed Atreyu that because Fantasia was built on the hopes and dreams of mankind that it had no boundaries. Atreyu wanted to know why it was dying then. Gmork responds that people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams.....that is why the NOTHING is destroying the land. Here's where i paid really close attention....Atreyu asked what the NOTHING was to which Gmork responds, "It is the emptiness that is left, it is like a despair that is destroying this world." Atreyu then asks why Gmork was helping it. Gmork responds, "because people who have no hopes are easy to control and whoever has the control....has the power."

when i heard that i realized why it bothered me when i was a child. if there was one thing i never wanted to lose it was my hopes and dreams and i can't tell you how many conversations i have with people who seem to have lost hope in their dreams or have just said i guess that this is how it's gonna have to be.
maybe you've said this or have heard someone say this, "i don't know why i'm feeling lost or sad or upset...i just am" like there's no way to describe it except for a NOTHINGNESS....it's because in some way we have lost hope that things can and will be better. that the dream that might have been there a long time ago is gone. that the relationship that is fractured can never be repaired. that the hurt is too deep. all of these point to one thing......HOPE! when we lose hope we begin to live in a way that none of us were meant to live and we begin to be controlled by fear. Fear that things won't get better, fear of making the wrong decisions, fear of what people may think of us. "he who has the control, has the power!"
who is in control of your life?
I know one thing is for certain about mine and i knew it from a young age....no one or nothing will make me lose hope or forget about my dreams....i know who's in control of my life and i have nothing to Fear!!!