Footloose

On Friday, I took my 13 year old daughter and her friend to see the movie Footloose. No biggie, I thought. It'll be fun to see the remake and to see if my daughter likes it as much as I did the first time around. In the opening scene, the music starts blaring the song Footloose. So like every other person in the theatre (and it was packed full), I started singing along. My daughter was mortified. I don't have this great voice but it couldn't be that bad. No one could hear me anyway…it was very loud. "Stop it mother, just stop!" Hannah was more than a little upset with me. I cracked up and told her to just listen…everybody else was singing along too. It was pretty funny.

Later I realized that I had justified my behavior the same way I tell my daughter not too. Oops! More often than not, I counsel her not to make choices based on what everybody else is doing. Rather I tell her to be intentional about what she's doing and to really consider what she wants.

Last week in Bible study we looked at a similar lesson in the book of Ruth. Towards the end of the book in chapter 3, Ruth goes to Boaz in the night and essentially asks him to take her as his wife. Boaz is a kinsman-redeemer, but he's not the closest one. Boaz could have done several things but he chose to do the right thing. He could have embarrassed Ruth, but he chose to protect her character. He could have taken her as his, but he chose to follow the customs of the day and bring the matter to the appropriate person. He does the right thing.

It was actually a message in the movie too! The young folks could have chosen to rebel and keep sneaking around. **Spoiler Alert** In the end, they choose to confront the real issue and be honest about what they want. And at the risk of being totally honest, I sang again at the end of the movie….'cause everybody else was! A work in progress, that's me.