Once Upon A Time

Everyone has a guilty pleasure.  Mine is a television show called "Once Upon A Time."  Outside of sporting events, it's the only program I watch on TV.

In the first season, all these fairy tale characters live under a curse that has banished them to a life in our world.  While that in itself may not be so bad, they also have no memories of their lives in the Enchanted Forest.  Basically, they don't know who they are.  There is no hope in the hollow lives they have been forced to live.

 But at the end of the first season, they all regain their old memories while still retaining their memories from their lives in our world.  Not only do they know who they are but now their identities have been enhanced by an enormous amount and diversity of life experiences.  They become more complete than they ever have been before.  There is hope.

 It's not all a bed of roses, however.  Some characters feel ripped off, as if their lives had been stolen from them.  Remembering everything does not necessarily make all the wrong things become right.  Some would have preferred not to remember that they once had a life that may never be completely restored.

But at least they know who they are.  Regaining their memories has been a healing process.  Healing can be painful and thus hard to swallow.  But now their lives have direction and a purpose.  There is hope.

Nehemiah 8: 2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
Luke 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21