Sunday night when I got home I watched a movie I had been holding in que. The movie is called “Secret”, or “不能说的秘密” in Chinese, the language it was originally released in. (Amazon, IMDB, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes.) I had seen a music video on YouTube called “Dandelion’s Promise”, and the story in the lyrics was personally very moving. You can view the music video here, but I don’t know that it will be as moving to you.

I don’t want to talk much about the movie because I feel that if I talk about it too much you’ll think too highly of it. Don’t get me wrong: It was a great movie. A romance with a twist, and a beautiful ending. But I just doubt that it will provoke such a strong response in most people. I don’t know, try it and see I guess.

What I really wanted to say is that after I watched this movie, I sat there for about an hour in silence and then I wept. I honestly do not think I am exaggerating when I say that I have never cried so hard in my life. For a good hour I wept and a deep sorrow covered my heart.

Friends, let me tell you why this grown man of twenty-seven wept so openly and sorrowed so deeply. There are two reasons, and they are both extremely personal.

The first reason is largely sentimental, and I could simplify by saying that the love portrayed in this story brought up memories of my own experience of love, and reminded me of the pain of letting go. I know it sounds cheesy, but sometimes the only way to describe emotions is with cheesy sounding phrases. That night I wept out of pain, and that sorrow was perhaps that much more bitter because I had tasted a small portion of that intimacy.

The second reason, and the one that hit me harder the more I thought about it, was simply this: I am so far from being the man I desired to be. My struggles with pride, with self-control, with the lust of the flesh—all of these battles I had hoped would be much farther, yet I still succumb to the same temptation that I have in the past. But even more, I had wanted to be a man who loved God and loved others with all I have.

And I don’t.

Perhaps you’ll give me some reason why I shouldn’t feel so down. Give me some assurance of something.

I know, I know. Intellectually I know, and in my heart I know. But something about this movie made me feel something in my deepest of emotions that I haven’t felt for a long time.

Sometimes I talk to people about movies that make them cry, but no one ever seems willing to say exactly why the movie made them cry. Well, I left a lot of the details out, but this was my best attempt. To be honest, I’m still processing this movie, I cry every time I think much about it.