Not Yet The End

 "Everything is going to turn out all right in the end,

so if it is not all right, it is not yet the end."

 

I just saw the trailer of the newly released British comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. With two favourite actresses in the cast -- Maggie Smith and Judi Dench -- already I have a very good feeling about a movie I haven't seen yet, but now want to.

The movie is based on the novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach, and is about...

"...a group of British retirees who are enticed by advertisements to travel to India to stay at the Marigold Hotel, which has been restored as a retirement home by a young Indian man with the best of intentions.

However, when they arrive, they find the living accommodations aren't quite as luxurious as portrayed in the brochure. Despite having to cope with broken furniture, phones that don't work and food they can't pronounce, they share a number of unconventional but hilarious experiences that bring them closer together." (excerpt from online synopsis)

One scene that already has a defining moment for me comes when one of these retirees demands that she be moved to the hotel that's in the brochure to which she's pointing (not this ramshackle of a lobby she was standing in). The young Indian man -- restorer of the establishment -- calmly responds that in India they have a saying:

"Everything is going to turn out all right in the end, so if it is not all right, it is not yet the end."

Mmm... for someone who believes with all her heart that God knows the beginning from the end, and for someone who is ever amazed at His ability for turning ashes into beauty, she is reminded once again of a time when she felt discouraged by so little movement in response to her prayer. And when she had asked Him about, He whispered deep into her heart, "I see the end and it is good."

Now, after all this time, somewhere in the middle of a British movie, is an echo of that moment. And it arrives just at a time when it seems I need its fortifying under-girding again.

Have you had such an experience.... where an answer or perfect word comes to you through a line or scene in a movie or book, through a song, or even the message on an advertising billboard?

If the place where you are at or that thing you've been working on is not all right, may I dare remind you that you, m'dear, are not yet at the end of your story either.  So discouraged do not be!

Now here's wishing you

glimpses of heaven in unexpected places!

Brenda
xox

  Photo source:  Vintage Catnip.com