The Soloist: A human story of love and redemption

There are not many movies where I leave the theater completely drowned in the thoughts that the movie brought to mind, but last night, I had such an emotional experience watching The Soloist. If you're not familiar, the movie is a factitious story about a L.A. Times journalist, Steve Lopez, who befriends Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless man who happens to be a musical genius robbed of his dreams by mental illness. He's a paranoid schizophrenic unable to successfully function because he is tormented by the voices in his head.

The Soloist was a beautiful story of grace and redemption...much like that of the gospel. You see Steve, a prestigious journalist, humble himself to love and befriend a man that most of the world ignores. Once Steve gets to know Nathaniel his eyes are opened to see his spirit. Underneath his dirty appearance, his cart full of garbage and his craziness, Steve sees a passionate man with an unbelievable gift and a love that he's never known. Steve blesses Nathaniel with opportunity that he had given up on...He even calls Steve his God. Sound familiar? God blesses his people with the same love, grace and redemption.

Towards the end of the movie, Nathaniel's mental illness causes him to turn on Steve. He starts beating Steve up and threatened to "cut him like a fish." But surprisingly, Steve doesn't give up on Nathaniel. Instead, he returns to Skid Row to find his friend and treats him as though the incident never happened. You see in Nathaniel's eyes that this is a love that he has never experienced before. Isn't that how we are with God? In spite of His unfailing love and blessing, we deny, disobey and sin against Him, but yet He continues to love us as if nothing happened. What a beautiful picture of grace!

What else broke me about The Soloist is the reality of the situation. When I have spent time with the homeless in the past, the majority of them are mentally disturbed, but I've never thought much about their lives before the streets...I've never imagined that at one time, they could have had a legitimately promising future. After seeing this movie, I believe there are many Nathaniels out there on the streets. There's 90,000 homeless in the streets of L.A. alone, and so many of these people had dreams, had ambitions, had a future...and they were robbed by mental illness. They are out there wandering the streets confused, displaced and dismissed from society. This movie showed the power that simple love and friendship can have on the spirit of a person...everyone needs a friend and to be shown the love of Jesus.

If you haven't seen The Soloist, go see it.

Spring is just like a playa

I wish I had a pic of my awesome racerback tan line. It's incredible...some may say incredibly ugly, but I love it, because the sun is finally out again and according to weather.com, it will be out for awhile!

I must say, I've been rather disappointed in our Spring weather this year. It's just like a single playa....fickle, back and forth, hot and cold and oh, such a tease. Back in beginning of March, we had some unseasonably warm weather that made me think spring was going to make an early appearance this year. Then mid-March, the rain and the wind came through like an unwelcome house guest, and he wore out his welcome for way too long!

For the past month, there has been this horrible back-and-forth game where there would be just enough warm sun to get me excited, and then Jack Frost would blast in on his magic carpet with a blast of cold and more freakin' rain! He even brought a day of snow flurries to Georgia in April!...that was just plain mean.

My longing for warm weather and sun is more confirmation that I could never survive outside the South. My Southern blood yearns for warm weather and the great outdoors. And the forecast says: SUNNY....don't tease me.

Childhood Reminder #1: New Kids on the Block

I discovered something new in the world of blogging. Blog series. My blog series is going to be Childhood Reminders, because I love them with all my heart. Anything that can take me out of my complicated world of responsibility and coming-into-adulthood confusion, I say Bring. It. On. And my first Childhood Reminder is New Kids on the Block.

I went to the NKOTB concert back in October and paid $90 for my ticket. Yeah, that's right, $90! I didn't pay $90 because they are amazing musicians or performers. I paid $90 because they remind me of my childhood.

It was still one of the best concerts I've ever been to...EVER. I felt just like a little girl again. I screamed so loud that I lost my voice the next day.

Just like any normal girl who grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, New Kids on the Block was my favorite band. I knew every word to every song. I owned every piece of New Kids paraphernalia that I could get my little hands on. Joey McIntyre was my favorite New Kid. I had a huge poster of him on my bedroom door, because my mom would not let me hang posters on my wall. Every night before, I went to bed, I would kiss him goodnight.

I went to ultimate extremes to see the New Kids. I went to my first New Kids concert in a limo, and me and my friends pretended that we were Donnie Wahlberg's cousins. And there were people who actually believed us!

The ultimate though, was when I wrote a letter to the New Kids and told them that I was dying of cancer, and that my only dying wish was to meet them in person. I don't know how that one didn't work, but I got no response from that.

Now, at 29, I still love them just as much, if not more than I did when I was 12, and I'm not ashamed to say it. They're on tour, and you know you want to go.