Devotional One: Two Views on Love
- Mr. Zachary Roberts
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Series Introduction: WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT LOVE?
Frozen is perhaps the most iconic story of the twenty-first century so far. While full of lines and songs that so many know by heart, there is a depth of understanding that can be found concerning the nature of love. Throughout this devotional series, we will explore how love can be found and how love can be misunderstood in many ways. NRCA’s Squire Theatre is excited to bring this love story to life, and perhaps the love story is more than anyone understands. The Season of Friendship ends this year with a beautiful story about how love can transcend both emotion and fear.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
–I Corinthians 13:7
ANNA: Love is an open door...
ELSA: Conceal it. Don’t feel it.
–Frozen
Love is a key ingredient to a good musical. So many musicals deal with the ups and downs of love in many ways. Frozen is no exception; however, while many musicals deal with romantic love, Frozen deals with the type of love less considered in the Broadway canon. The love story in this musical is that of the love of the family and in particular, the love between two sisters who want nothing more than to be a family together. While there is a romantic interest for Anna, the primary exploration of love is familial—between Anna and Elsa as sisters.
The two sisters are as different as two people can be, and their personalities play significantly into how they view love. Both Anna and Elsa feel the sting of isolation. For many years, the two sisters have been kept apart, and with this isolation comes a whirl of consequences. Anna is an exuberant and extroverted young woman who is looking for love to replace the loss of her sister. Elsa, meanwhile, leans into her isolation and sees her separation from Anna as a means of protecting her sister. Both young women are searching for something to fill the chasm left by their parents’ death, and their decisions regarding love take them in two extremes.
For Anna, Prince Hans is the whirlwind of romantic love that she has been missing for a long time. Anna finds herself smitten by a man she hardly knows, but who she believes can fill the void left by the absence of her parents and Elsa. Anna is in love with the idea of being in love. Truly, nothing is wrong with love being a feeling, but if it is to grow, love must extend to wanting the best for another person despite what this costs us personally. At one extreme, the audience sees Anna gleefully falling head over heels for a man she hardly knows.
At the other extreme, the audience finds Elsa pushing others away at great cost as well. Truly, Elsa loves her sister, but she doesn’t trust herself to keep Anna out of harm’s way. Elsa rejects Anna because she is afraid her powers will harm Anna even further.
In I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul speaks famously about the nature of love. He gives a description of love that rivals any other definition of love in the human realm. As we move forward in these devotionals, we will explore the way in which Paul’s definition of love demonstrates the dangerous extremes of love found in the example of Anna and Elsa.
