Storyline: When a young girl and her dying mother are joined by a black male cook who comes to live with them, little do they know that their lives are about to change forever.  fyi: IMDb has a 7.7/10 rating from over 14,000 votes. Other sources may not be so kind. You may have to watch the movie and make your own critique. Smile. Smile.

 

Some would say this is a slow moving movie, but I can appreciate a movie where you fall in love with the characters and wait to find out what happens to them and their stories. I loved seeing a sober side to Eddie Murphy (Mr. Church) and I also love Britt Robertson.

 

 

The Lessons I took away from this movie:

YOU ALWAYS HAVE TIME TO IMPROVE YOURSELF–Mr. Church was always doing something that improved his world–reading, writing, playing the piano, painting, cooking…he  was a good example of this to “Charlotte”.

I know I left the movie feeling like I had a new sense of not wasting time & have been reading more and filling my time with learning. It was good for me.

 

 

YOUR PAST DOES NOT HAVE TO DEFINE YOU–There may be dark secrets, hidden things about someone’s past, but it does not have to define them. Mr. Church gave and gave, but struggled with demons from his past.

I think we can all take this lesson into our personal lives. We all have pasts that hold scars, wounds, hurts, bad memories, BUT we can also learn from them and do our best to not let them hold on and weigh us down. We can break the chains and be free if we truly want to be.     I struggled with this one recently. I had an old boyfriend that I dated for over 2 years when I was younger. I recently found out that he had been put in prison for sexually abusing some young girls. The last couple of years I had memories that kept coming up about when we dated and I felt very violated. I had bad dreams, anxiety, fears…but I had to keep focusing on all the growth that has happened since I was that young girl. We had both changed by choices we made. He took a different path & I did feel bad for the place his life ended up, but I could not give my power away again. My life is full of wonderful things and those worries and fears and memories were beginning to weigh me down and chain me. I was not about to allow that because there is too much good in my life.  The past can haunt, but not have control. I took my power back and have not looked back.

 

 

ALWAYS BE KIND–Always be kind to others, you never know the impact you may have on someone else’s life.  There was a sweet relationship between Charlotte (Charlie) and a guy named Larson. I don’t want to spoil it for you, so you will just have to watch.

I think we truly do not know the impact we may have on others. Our smile may lift another, a kind gesture, a listening ear, a hand to hold. We often overlook the simple connections that are always there to make.

 

 

LOVE IS A GIFT— The relationship between Charlie and her mother was sweet and very loving. In the end her mother worries that Charlie would only have memories of the pain of her dying and not all the love that was shared. That was a tear-filled scene. It was very heart wrenching.

I think we can all look at the sweet relationships we have and choose to make them deeper, more love-filled, and more meaningful. Life truly goes by so quickly and it is the little, daily moments shared that will be remembered. Make time to hug, to talk, to spend one-on-one time with those important to you. Have special rituals or things you do that bind those relationships together. Maybe you have a weekly lunch date with best friends. Maybe you have monthly daddy/daughter or mommy/missy dates. Maybe you have a special bed time ritual. Maybe you write your children a special letter every six months. Maybe you have a special dinner to celebrate things your grateful for. There are so many things you can strive to do to connect even more with those you care about.

 

“Go and do something good with your life” were Charlie’s last words to her childhood friend Owen.

A good motto for our daily life. Go do good!!

PEACE. JOY and HAPPINESS to you today.  -H