Broken hearts, betrayal, romance, love, marriage, joy, sorrow, children, puppies, Christmas, cookies, hot chocolate and falling snow. These and many more are ingredients of what most of us immediately recognize as a Hallmark Movie. How often do we hear the phrase, “it was a Hallmark moment”?  From our teen years on, most of us know the meaning of this sentiment. For with it there is a smile and often  a tear or two.  Yes, we know the ending within 5 minutes of viewing the beginning. Why then do we continue to watch year after year and hour after hour a movie which we already know the ending?  Because it brings us joy.

Having attended countless writer’s meetings and workshops, we are told repeatedly that in order to be good writers, we must pen our stories based upon our knowledge and experience. Thus, the writers for the Hallmark movies have experienced the same kind of joy, sorrow, good times and bad as each of us watching those surreal, “sappy” movies.

We may be at a time in our life which atypical love stories and happy endings are what we need to lift our spirits. In the summer, I heard someone in one of my quilting circles telling us,  they put on their jammies, comfy slippers, baked cookies, turned their air conditioner down and snuggled under a quilt while drinking hot chocolate and watching “Hallmark Christmas in July” movies with their grandchildren. We love being carried away by a “Calgon moment” of yesteryear.

Yes, just today, amid the noise and clatter of my disarranged life, I turned on a Hallmark movie. No, not any movie, but a Hallmark Hall of Fame. I needed to be reminded of what life could have been like “if only” I had known the heart of one of the most important people in my life. “If only” I had known what he was thinking and feeling, would I now be sitting in an empty house, barren except for a single bed and sofa, with countless persons, amid the cacophony of their voices and equipment?

No matter how hard we try, we can never know what another is thinking or what their heart is feeling, if they choose not to share. Greater yet, is when we don’t know, what the outcome will be on our own lives? TO BE CONTINUED:  Proverbs 27:19, NIV, “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”