How to heal a frozen heart

If you haven’t seen the Disney movie Frozen, I’m probably going to ruin the end for you. Chances are if you have kids you’ve seen this movie multiple times, and if you are an adult without kids, I suspect you are not waiting to see this movie anyway.

Last year I think my 4 year-old son watched the Frozen movie 50 times. Typically, I zone off to these types of predictable Disney movies. When my son is fixated on these films, I immediately focus in, as now I have free time do my other tasks, and his movie becomes mere background noise to me. As I was taking a break from my theology studies, I found myself curiously watching Frozen with him. Without getting into the details of the movie, the viewer is taken on a journey in which a town called Arendelle has literally been frozen over by a mysterious spell that Princess Elsa cast on the town. It is stated early on that only an act of true love can restore a frozen heart and thus bring back the peaceful weather to Arendelle. The viewer is led to believe that this will be the typical Disney fairytale movie: something happens to the girl, and the kiss of her “true love” fixes it. Elsa’s sister, Anna, is on the path to being frozen to death so it appears that when Anna receives a kiss from her true love all will be healed.

However, the frozen heart that was the real focus of the movie is Elsa’s emotional heart, not Anna’s physical heart. As a soldier seeks to strike a blow to Elsa in order to destroy her frozen spell, Anna ends up throwing herself in front of the sword and thus saving her sister. Anna’s giving her life for Elsa is the act of true love that restores Elsa’s emotionally frozen heart. When Elsa realizes what her sister did to save her life, she collapses with emotion on her frozen sister. Everything that was frozen by Elsa's powers begins to thaw. Eventually, Anna thaws and is physically restored. The frozen spell has been deflated, and love wins in the story.

I want to draw your attention to the emotional scene where Elsa realizes the depth of the love her sister demonstrated. Notice that evidence of Elsa’s heart’s restoration did not take place until she realizes what Anna did. Anna had given her life a minute before Elsa saw what happened, but it wasn’t until Elsa saw what happened, and understood it, that her frozen heart was restored.

It began to dawn on me that this Disney movie that I had previously dismissed as childish was drawing off the deep biblical theme in the Gospel. First, we can notice that Anna’s sacrifice of herself to save her sister is echoing Jesus’s sacrifice for all of us on the Cross. Truly, Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross was the act of true love for the entire world. I also want to draw off the realization that Elsa’s frozen heart was not fixed until she realized the nature of her sister’s sacrifice. Now, most Christians will try to sum up emotional sentiments of Jesus by what he did on the Cross – he give up his life for us. But, I suspect most Christians don’t have a proper understanding of Jesus’s sacrifice. Real conversion happens when someone understands his sacrifice on the Cross. Once you know the full story, then like Elsa, your conversion will begin. I know this because this idea perfectly fits my story. For about 30 years I identified as a Christian and tried to act the part, but the fact is I didn’t have a clue as to what Jesus’s sacrifice was all about. I more or less put on an act as if I knew about his sacrifice so as to fit in or to be perceived as a “good guy.” But, this isn’t real conversion like Elsa had in the movie.

Like most people, I desperately wanted to know the truth in life. I had a yearning to see ultimate reality and to remove lingering doubt. My problem was that I used this desire the wrong way. Instead of directing this desire to seek God, I directed it towards the pop culture. My real conversion to Christianity did not happen until I really understood what Jesus was doing. For me, the understanding was a part of a 3-year process and one that eventually brought me back to the Catholic Church. Once I finally had an understanding of God’s message, I began to realize how immense and beautiful this sacrifice really was. After the conversion, I slowly began to drop the cares of the modern culture (pleasure, power, trends, money) and moved toward God. My heart was frozen in the clutches of the power of this world, but began to be thawed out by God’s immeasurable mercy.

So, the real kicker is in the understanding of Jesus’s sacrifice. Perhaps in another blog I will write about how I came to understand this. For now, it is important to see that in the Frozen story, my story, and Jesus’s story, true healing comes after the understanding. Jesus himself hinted at this in the parable of the sower (see Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23). Notice in the parable, Jesus talks about 4 types of ground that represent 4 types of people trying to hear God’s message. With the first type, Jesus says when “any one who hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches what is sown in his heart.” (verse 19). Then, the second is one who “hears the word with joy” they last for a little while but have no root, so they fall away. The second type of person implies we need more than just mere emotion to understand God’s message. The third type of person hears the word, “but the cares of the world and the delight of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” (verse 22). For my whole life I fit into the third category. I couldn’t decipher much of God’s sacrifice or what it meant because I was addicted to the pleasures of the world through the pop culture. Also, as the second type of person implies, people who try to connect to God via emotion will not last, because there is no root. Where does the root come from? It comes from understanding. Jesus confirms this when he says of the fourth type of person, “As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it, he indeed bears fruit.” (verse 23)

Once we really understand what Jesus did on the Cross, we will reach that magical ahh-ahh moment and then our real emotions will kick in. You don’t need to be a theologian or a scholar to understand God’s message. All you need to do is be a sincere, honest, humble seeker of the truth. God tells us that if you honestly want to understand, you will. He’ll give it to you. See the following passages below for proof:

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29)

I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me (Proverb 8:17)

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13)

And to close, Jesus guarantees us that if we seek him, he’ll be there, “Seek and you shall find” (Matthew 7:7). Now, the above verses suggest this seeking is not on our terms (what we want to be true), it is on God's terms. After this seeking, the understanding comes in. As Elsa’s heart melted when she understood, so to will your heart. In this Year of Mercy, let us seek Jesus. He stands there waiting for us with open arms.