A WORD FOR TODAY, November 3, 2025
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, November 3, 2025
“If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man’s work, pass the time of your living as foreigners here in reverent fear, knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ, who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in this last age for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from the heart fervently, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever. For, ‘All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls; but the Lord’s word endures forever.’ This is the word of Good News which was preached to you.” 1 Peter 1:17-25, WEB
We have been doing some remodeling in our house. One of our rooms is now a tv/game room, a place where we can relax and play. We have several old game systems, including a Wii and an Atari (modern rerelease) which have been buried in a box. We set them up so we can use them again. We laughed this morning about how we are sixty-somethings with a game room as if we were in our teens again. Of course, teens today don’t use the kind of game systems we had, but we can reminisce about our younger years. I wished that I still had the Pong game I had when I was a kid. I know the graphics are ridiculously simple, but it was fun, and I was pretty good!
The room will also be used for movie nights. I still purchase CDs. I even have a few VCR tapes and a player I can use! I have so many old movies on DVD and Blue Ray and a few new ones we haven’t watched yet. Movies were often the focus of our family time. Bruce and I have rented a cabin where we went to spend a weekend just watching movies. We had movie parties for our children’s birthday parties. We don’t take the time to watch as often as we should, but maybe the new tv room will entice us into having regular movie nights.
One of the movie parties included a screening of the movie “Shrek.” We enjoyed popcorn as we watched the craziness of that modern day fairy tale unfold. Shrek is an ogre, an extremely ugly and rude character who described himself as an onion, with many different layers. In the movie, other fairy tale characters are evicted from their homes and end up in his swamp. Shrek went to the evil Lord Farquaad to demand he restore the creatures to their homes so he could have his privacy. Shrek won the opportunity to rescue a princess that Farquaad wanted to marry. If he succeeded, Farquaad would get the creatures out of his swamp. Shrek and his buddy the Donkey traveled to the foreign land to save Fiona.
Fiona is a beautiful princess, trapped in the tower of a castle protected by a large dragon. After some perilous adventures, the three began their journey home. Fiona had some definite ideas about how her fairy tale was supposed to end, and an ogre was not part of her expectation. She reluctantly went with Shrek and Donkey, but a relationship bloomed during the journey. Fiona was not completely honest; she hid herself at night because she had a deep dark secret. She became an ugly ogre at night, but she was sure that when she married Lord Farquaad and kissed him with love’s first kiss the spell would be broken, and she would live forever as a beautiful princess. The three friends had a misunderstanding and though she began to love Shrek, she went with the evil Farquaad to be married.
In the end, Shrek’s true heart was revealed and the two kissed love’s first kiss. Fiona’s wish came true, though not as she expected. Instead of becoming a beautiful princess, she became an ogre forever, just like her true love. They realized that true love is not necessarily as we expect, but something much deeper and more real.
The same is true of the love of God. The Jews had an expectation of what the Messiah would look like, and how he would fulfill the promise. For many years they followed false messiahs looking for an earthly answer to their problems. They missed Jesus completely when He was in their midst because He did not fit into their expectations. Yet, He was the answer to all their prayers, giving a deeper love than anything they could even imagine. Sadly, we tend to miss the truth and love of our Lord because we are looking for the fairy tale ending.
I’m sure our house is much too big for the two of us, but we have made our home a welcome place for everyone who might come to be part of our family, even if it is only for a brief time. We laughed about being old folk with a nostalgic room full of old movies and games, but it will be a way that we continue to live the love that we found with each other and share our love with our friends.
Fiona thought she had to give up the ugly ogre to find true love, but she really was giving up real love for something evil. In our Christian walk, we often seek love in the wrong places: in the law or in the perishable things of this world. However, true love is found in the truth of Jesus Christ, the twist at the end of the fairy tale. Jesus died so that we might have life. In His death we are resurrected to be something very beautiful, a beauty that will live forever. With His life in us, we love as He does, sincerely and deeply, from our hearts.
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