Daily Word of Grace # 133 (September 17, 2020)
In the Academy Award winning 2012 film Silver Linings Playbook Bradley Cooper plays Pat Solitano, Jr., whose marriage has fallen apart and who has just been released from a mental health facility following his breakdown. Pat always loved Sunday’s especially in the fall, during football season when he and his family would watch their beloved Philadelphia Eagles. But the pain of his divorce and breakdown had soured his view of Sunday’s. But over the course of the film Pat experiences much healing and redemption, complete with a second chance, especially through his relationship with Tiffany Maxwell (played by Jennifer Lawrence). By the end of the film he says in a voice-over: “The world will break your heart ten ways to Sunday, that’s guaranteed, and I can’t begin to explain that, or the craziness inside myself and everybody else, but guess what? Sunday is my favorite day again. I think of everything everyone did for me and feel like a very lucky guy.” Pat is right—indeed “The world will break your heart ten ways to Sunday, that’s guaranteed”…but there is something else that’s also guaranteed, the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross is definitive proof of that love (Romans 5:8) and whose love “heals the brokenhearted” (Psalm 147:3) and can make Sunday—or any day of the week—your favorite day again.
Love and Prayers,
Dave