Film Friday Bridget Jones is back with her diary. In the film Mad About the Boy we find Bridget and her children Mable and Billy struggling with the loss of her husband Mark Darcey. And along with that she continues to find life a challenge, as things continue to go wrong and life wrongfoots her again and again and again. When she goes back to her job as TV producer and hires the younger Chloe to help out at home, she is constantly upstaged by the younger woman who seems to be one step ahead of everything, and always manages to get everything just right.
When Bridget Jones burst onto the scene back in the 90s what endeared her to so many was the way she bumbled through life. She was clumsy and beset by catastrophe. But she didn’t give in to life’s mayhem and did what she could to muddle through.
It’s disarming and uplifting to know that others make mistakes and find life a challenge. The truth of that can often help us to keep going. When I felt ambushed by life a few years back it was heartening to discover that so many of the characters in the Bible made mistakes and struggled with reality. These heroes turned out to be very flawed, and the writers of the Bible didn’t hide that, they were brutally honest about that. One of the great evangelists, Jonah, wrote his story about not wanting to convert the Ninevites because he didn’t like them. Moses thought he could change Egypt by killing someone. When Peter wasn’t tripping over his feet he was putting them in his mouth. Moses’s sister Miriam was a song writing prophet who, in Exodus 15, led her people in worship when they escaped slavery. Yet we’re also told In Numbers 12 she was envious of her brother and criticised him. As a result she was excluded from the others for seven days. Life goes wrong at times.
There’s a reason why God doesn’t call perfect people – there aren’t any! We may look at others and think they have it sorted, but we’re all in the same boat. Life is difficult and unpredictable. Full of those moments of mayhem and muddling. So don’t give up.
Lord, please help us today with the unexpected, clumsy and difficult moments. Thank you that you are with us in the good times and the messy ones. Amen.
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Thanks for this very helpful outline of the bumbling Bridget Jones. It’s very good to be reminded that our biblical heroes often found life challenging and messy.