Devotional Three: Elsa, the Fearful Individual
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. –I Corinthians 13:7
ELSA: I can't dwell on what we've lost And our secrecy and silence Comes at such a cost I wish I could tell the truth Show you who's behind the door I wish you knew what all this pantomime And pageantry was for I have to be so cautious And you're so extreme We're different, you and I And it's dangerous to dream –Frozen
A wise person once said, “Every strength taken to an extreme is a weakness.” Elsa is an example of just such a person. Driven by her parents’ fear and misunderstanding, Elsa isolates herself from the world and her only sister, Anna. The relationship between the sisters, which is so cherished by the young Elsa and Anna, is soon forsaken out of fear by the older Elsa. While our culture values the strength of the individual, this same individualism can push us into isolation in the same way Elsa’s fear about her powers causes her to abandon her sister. To be fair, Elsa is right to fear a power she can’t control, but she allows herself to become paralyzed by fear.
In a sense, Elsa is the opposite of Anna’s hopeless romantic. Elsa finds power and safety in isolation. She truly desires to keep her sister safe from harm, but this desire drives Elsa to an unhealthy isolation. Love is not supposed to be a force for isolation, but rather, a force to bring others together. We can often feel isolated when love disappoints us, but hopefully, we can see the hurt of love as a means for moving forward and not moving inward.
The love of Jesus is an example of love overcoming isolation and fear. Jesus did not wait for humanity to get its act together before extending His love. In fact, the Scriptures clearly state Jesus loved us even when our sin had isolated us from Him: “...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Unlike Elsa, who almost learns too late the danger of isolation, Jesus had compassion for us and reached out to us in our sinful isolation.
