Lessons From Finding Dory – Come Home.

 

Finding Nemo was one of my favorite movies to watch with my kids when they were young.  And though my kids are older now they agreed to go see the much-awaited sequel Finding Dory.  I’m so glad they did because I left with a beautiful picture of just how much our Heavenly Father loves us and desperately wants us to find our way to him.

Dory suffered from short-term memory loss, and in the film we get a glimpse into her past through a series of flashbacks.  Because of her short-term memory loss her parents would spend their days teaching Dory how to cope with her deficit and trying to help her remember things. They worried about Dory getting lost and because Dory loved seashells they created a path of sea shells that Dory could follow to find her way home should she ever get lost.

We see Dory’s parents constantly reminding her to stay away from the current for fear she will be swept away.  Dory is intrigued by what the ocean has to offer beyond her home and she ventures right to the edge to get a better view.  One day she ventures just a little too far, is swept up in the current, and taken far from the only home she knows. 

Just like Dory, we can lose our way from time to time.  The current of the world we live in tries to draw us in and entice us.  It threatens to sweep us away and take us far from what we know and where we belong if we aren’t careful. We can easily become enamored with worldly things and the ways of the world rather than the things of God. Maybe like Dory, we take a few steps our of outside the will of God.  And the next time we go a little further from what God desires from us.  Just like Dory, before we know it we can be caught up, swept away, and lost.

Several years go by with Dory on her own, but then she begins to remember bits and pieces of her former life and she wants to go home.  With the help of Marlin and Nemo, Dory manages to find her way back to where she grew up.  When she first arrives she doesn’t see her parents, but what she does see left me near tears. Dory sees a seashell and remembers that was how she used to find her way home.  But there isn’t just one path of seashells.  There, layed out like a sunburst, are paths and paths of seashells fanning out from the door to her home so that no matter which direction Dory had come from she would have seen a shell path that would lead her home.  Dory turns to see her parents swimming toward her carrying more shells to create another path.  They had never given up hope of her returning home and were continuing to add to the path that would one day lead her there. 

What a beautiful picture of our Heavenly Father’s unfailing love for us.  He desperately wants us to find our way home no matter which direction we’ve gone or how far we’ve wandered.  Dory had Marlin and Nemo to help her find her way and I believe God orchestrates people, places, and circumstances to help us find our way too.  He longs for us to take a step on the path that will lead us to Him.  And just like Dory’s parents never gave up their hope of her finding her way home, God never gives up on us.  He is always there waiting with open arms saying,  “Come home, my love.  Come home.”