Remember who you are...

My Christmas present this year from the wife was dinner and tickets to the musical Lion King. It's been a long time since I had seen the Disney movie but the lines and songs (those that were not changed) were all coming back to my mind. But I always forget about the one scene in the Lion King that gets me - no tears are involved but it's pretty close.

There's the scene where Rafiki (sp?) leads Simba out into the wilderness with the promise that he will show him his father. When he tells him to look deep into the water Simba's reflection turns into the face of his father. Then he hears his father's voice say, "You have forgotten me." When Simba protests that he has not, Mufasa answers back, "You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me."

This scene always gets me for two reasons. Number one, it makes me think of the commitments I have made through my Christian faith and how I see God as my father. So in turn it makes me think of the times I have failed to be who I am born to be, or have been less than that... and when that happens I have "forgotten the face of my father" (line borrowed from The Dark Tower series by Stephen King). But it also then of course makes me think of my biological father and my hopes that I have remembered his face in my life.

When I started having trouble in college with my running, pretty much right off the bat with a major injury, one of my biggest struggles was feeling like I was somehow letting down my father. And as my college career closed I had not completed any of my primary goals in relationship to running. It was actually my younger brother Bryan who helped to give me perspective on my college running and thanks to him I was able to realize that during this time, at least in that way, I had not forgotten the face of my father.

Thanks Bryan, and like Simba maybe we should stop to check and make sure we remember who we really are, and who we are not!