I’m having a severe rhinitis attack today. As much as I’d like to use a nasal saline spray, my nurse hubby advised me to go natural on remedies. He explained that using too much of it can result in a thinner mucus lining.

The mucus lining protects our respiratory system from viruses that could enter our body through nasal passages. So, here I am trying to make myself feel as comfortable as I can by writing a blog post. 😀

Same Kind Of Different As Me: A Movie Based On A True Story

Photo credit: imdb.com

For this article, I’ll be doing a review of the movie “Same Kind of Different As Me.” It is an adaptation of the New York Times’ Best-Selling novel based on a true story about faith, hope, love, and friendship.

I don’t want to divulge too many details about the movie just in case you haven’t seen it yet. So, I’ll keep this review short to limit the spoilers. It is already available on Netflix, by the way, since it was released in cinemas back in 2017.

The Characters

The main characters were played by actors Renee Zellwegger (Deborah Hall) and Greg Kinnear (Ron Hall). Greg and Deborah portrayed the typical couple who started out with relational rifts, which became the starting point of the turnaround of events.

Deborah is a wife, mother, and philanthropist, while her husband Greg is a writer and a wealthy international art dealer in Texas. Djimoun Hounsou played the role of Denver who is an ex-con living in a community for the homeless where Deborah volunteers. He is the person whom Deborah would always see in her dreams.

A Special Friendship, A Beautiful Marriage

What I loved about the movie is how the different experiences of each character have intertwined and changed their lives forever. They all have different personalities and yet were all used by God to fulfill a great plan that will benefit not just these 3 characters, but an entire community.

It’s Denver who mostly shared about his faith to the couple and my favorite quotation of his in the movie is this, “Debbie is getting precious in the eyes of God, she also becomes important to Satan.”

Debbie died of cancer at the end of the movie. She left a legacy, however, that changed lives and resulted in a beautiful friendship particularly between her husband and Denver.

She found out she has cancer in its terminal stage already. This sometimes baffles me how a crippling, incurable illness can be diagnosed without the patient even noticing he/she has it.

I believe this has something to do with Denver’s statement I quoted above, and it can also be that God’s purpose for Debbie was already fulfilled. Indeed, it kind of makes you think that our lives are really shorter than we expected.

Do What You Can Do, The Things That God Asked You To Do

Just like Debbie, I don’t intend to wait until the doctor tells me that I have a terminal illness before I start doing things that mattered to me and to God. I won’t wait for that moment before I do the things that I can do now, and the things that God asked me to do now.

So that when it’s time for us to cross the finish line, we have no regrets, and we die fulfilled. I’ve seen testimonies of dying persons over the internet whose last words were filled with the usual regretful “I should have done this and I should have done that.”

Why Wait if the Time is Now

By learning from these final words, we can also avoid these feelings of regret from taking place in our lives. Let’s use them instead to change how we run our lives now. How?

We can start by asking God what exactly are His plans for us. Even if it means going outside of our comfort zones, we have to obey Him. Debbie, for sure, wasn’t comfortable going to a community that is entirely the opposite of where she lives.

As her husband would remind her at first, the place was dangerous, full of criminals, and dirty. This didn’t stop Debbie though and she still followed what she saw in her dream. I believe her dream was a vision shown to her by God – a prophecy. It is what God was asking her to do.

God Makes Everything Beautiful in His Time

The day before she passed away, Debbie told her husband how things have turned out beautifully. She even got to appreciate the infidelity that her husband committed a few years back.

She said that if it wasn’t for it, then they wouldn’t have been given the chance to reclaim the love they used to have for one another and save their marriage from completely falling apart. I’d personally love to die saying these as my last words.

These are words spoken out of gratitude, peace, and contentment. And I believe it is because of my obedience to God when He asked me to do something that I can proclaim these words and say I was able to live a fulfilled life – a life with purpose and a life with meaning.

A Movie Worth Watching

I believe it is not a coincidence that I was able to watch it yesterday out of the countless movies on Netflix. It could probably be God’s leading that I get to see it so I can share it here on my blog. Because this blog is also the legacy that I will be leaving behind if the time comes for me to go.

Are you also living out the purpose that God has called you out? If yes, are you confident that when the right time has come for you to join Him, you can say with a free spirit that you’re ready?

If not yet, don’t waste any more time. I encourage you to have the courage to pursue what God has called you to do. Just like what Denver said in this movie, “We are all homeless just trying to find our way back home.”

Here are the Bible verses the Spirit has prompted me to share with you and help you discern God’s calling for your life:

“Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.

You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you.

Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.

May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.”

– 1 Thessalonians 5:1‭-‬24 NIV

Living life according to God’s plan,

P.S. I’ll just be watching the service in church via live stream. I just can’t disrupt it with my constant sneezing every hour when I’m there, can I? 😀