"I'm not strong enough..."

Last night at camp we did something we have not done any other week: we had an outdoor movie night. We sent the campers to their cabins to put on pj's, grab their sleeping bags, pillows, and mattresses, and meet us back on the lawn. We had a huge screen up against our meeting room wall and showed The Incredibles. I was super excited because I don't think I have watched a movie all summer. I was like a kid in a candy store, with my eyes the size of dinner plates and my jaw to the ground. Ooooooo....movie!!!! *drool*

I saw The Incredibles when it came out in theaters, but I have not seen it since. I liked it the first time, but I enjoyed it even more the second time. If you haven't seen it (all five of you), it is about a family of superheroes who have to conceal their powers and try to fit into "normal life". There is a dad (Bob), mom (Helen) and three kids - Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack. There was a scene in the movie that totally hit me that I feel like sharing about. Bear with me as I set it up.

So, Bob is in a job he dislikes and misses the old days of being a superhero and saving people. He starts to accept jobs from a secret organization so he can re-live his glory days. I guess you could say he went through a mid-life crisis. He buys a new car, starts working out like crazy, is just basically stoked on life. However, things turn bad and he finds himself in danger by the movie's "bad guy" - Syndrome. (dumbest name EVER for a bad guy, by the way) He is chained up and can't move when he hears that his wife and kids have crashed the plane they came in to save him. He is devastated.

Later, he finds out his family survived and he is beyond relieved. They all fight off bad dudes and finally get off the evil island back to their home. But they are followed by this crazy ball of destruction that is intent on killing them. He and his wife are driving towards it and he gets out of the car and tells them to stay there while he goes to fight it. Helen, the wife, is insistent that she goes with him. This is the part that got me last night.

Bob, the dad (Mr. Incredible), is pleading with her to stay in the car but she still wants to accompany him. He quietly says, "No...I'm not strong enough..." She gets mad and thinks, "What? Is this one more challenge that will prove you are strong enough!?" And he just looks at her and again quietly says, "No, I'm not strong enough...I can't lose you again."

Picture all these junior high campers just sitting, waiting expectantly for the next action sequence to occur, and then there's me, freezing cold and shivering, and totally tearing up. What was my deal?! I'm tearing up over a Pixar movie? But I couldn't help it. His words were so beautiful to me. I couldn't shake off what I was feeling when he said that. It made me think. He realized how much his wife and kids meant to him and he was so sad when he thought they had died. He couldn't bear the thought that his wife could die if she joined him in fighting this machine. He wasn't strong enough to lose her. Ironic, huh. The guy with super-strength wasn't strong enough for that. Because things like that affect the heart. It's beyond physical strength.

Is it wrong for me to want that? To be with someone who will be so in love with me that he never wants to lose me. And is it wrong for me to want to feel that for someone else? To love them so much that the thought of losing them would devastate me.

Maybe this is a topic too deep to take out of a kiddie flick. Maybe this is just me and my hopeless-romantic side coming out. And maybe this is something a little personal to share with anyone who reads this. Sure, maybe. But I can't deny that it DID hit me when I watched it. That was the thought that resonated with me as I left the cold air after the movie and got into my car and pumped up the heater.

"I'm not strong enough..."