Revisiting Amazing Grace

I'm up way too late (past midnight) trying to get some work done, both teaching and writing. It's been a long, full week with very little time for thinking or reading, and tired as I am, I just feel in need of some quiet space to do both.

This Friday evening found us at church for the monthly movie night, which my husband and a current seminarian began hosting a few months ago. This evening's film was "Amazing Grace," the 2006 film inspired by the life of William Wilberforce.

D. and I originally saw the movie back in the fall of 2007. I loved it then, as you can see from my review here, but I loved it even more the second time around. Perhaps this time I wasn't so focused on seeing whether or not they were historically accurate in the way they portrayed one of my favorite heroes of the faith. This time I just sat back and soaked in the wonderful performances. All of them were excellent, but Ioan Gruffudd was really masterful as Wilberforce. I remembered how well he captured his passion and drive; I hadn't remembered so vividly how he captured his frailty and exhaustion.

That's what really got to me tonight: how terribly in need of grace we all are, even those saints (like Wilberforce and Newton) whose lives we look back on with gratitude and sometimes awe. Wilberforce nearly burned himself out for God. There were clearly times (many times) when he couldn't see what God was doing, when he was worn out and at the end of his rope, and when he felt like a complete failure. Of course we the audience know, even as we watch those darkest moments, that grace will prevail. Wilberforce will succeed (did succeed) in getting his bills passed in parliament. The British slave trade was abolished in 1807 and slavery itself was abolished in 1833. His life's work was blessed and countless people freed and blessed through it.

But Wilberforce didn't know that while he lived it. He couldn't see the very good end, though he prayed for it fervently, dreamed it, imagined it, hoped for it. But what Gruffudd captures so brilliantly about Wilberforce is the truth that, in the midst of the very long fight, there were simply times when it just felt like a long, lonely, bitter slog. And there were times when only the grace of God, especially manifested through the love and encouragement of people around him, carried Wilberforce through.