bus.

(Written on the way to Iguazu this past Friday)

So here I am, on the bus, with a little less than four hours left until we get to Iguazu! Passing by a lot of countryside, so nothing too exciting there. Let me just say that these seats are incredibly comfortable (what I imagine first-class seats on airplanes to be like, I suppose), and they also recline back really far--virtually to 180 degrees! So awesome, haha.
I feel like this is also somewhat like a plane because we get our own individual TV screens. So last night, instead of journaling (to be fair, they turned off the lights before 10 pm!) I watched Hachi and Sherlock Holmes. Both were pretty good, but I especially liked Hachi--such a tearjerker!
Afterwards, I was almost moved to tears again when I thought about how it's similar with God and us--except God's love and loyalty is even more unfathomable than that of Hachi, who waited nine years for his deceased master to return.
What's even crazier to me is that God is always there, waiting for us to come back to Him, our first love! He loves us more than we can imagine--Jesus tells us in Matthew 18 that, like a shepherd who would leave 99 sheep to find the one who was lost, He is relentlessly pursuing the lost with His unfailing love.

For Sherlock Holmes, it was a bit harder for me to see a Jesus connection, but I guess I would just say that in a similar manner, God's plan is so intricate and perfect (and is much greater than "magic"), and though we can never fully understand it, we don't need to. Just gotta trust, because we know that He is working for our good! :D


//edit. Saturday morning, I also watched Marley & Me. Another good dog movie :) I really liked these quotes from the end.
When Marley is about to be put down, John Grogan (Owen Wilson) tells him, "What made you into a great dog is that you loved us no matter what." It really hit my heart as a glimpse of how Jesus feels about us--and he's not just a dog! But He really does love us, no matter what. :)

Another good quote from the movie at the end/from John Grogan...Slightly paraphrased, I feel that it does a good job of showing how Jesus looks at each one of us:

"Jesus doesn't care if you have fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbol means nothing to Him. A humble heart is all He asks for. Jesus judges people not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside (1 Samuel 16:7!). He doesn't care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give Him your heart, because He has already given you His, for always and forever. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary? I know for a fact that JESUS always can!
It's really quite simple, and yet we humans, thinking we are so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not. Sometimes it takes a trial and ruin and pain to bring us to our knees and to help us see."


:)