Life Lessons I Learned From Watching Saved

Source: amazon.com

Saved! is one of my favorite movies. I'll admit, it is rather irreverent at times, and I do skip through a couple parts of it. Since becoming a mom, I often catch myself thinking, "What would I want Charlie to take away from this movie/book/TV show?" I've found that this movie has taught me a few things that I think are important and that I would want Charlie to understand.

1. We don't always understand what God tries to tell us.
Mary, the main character, has sex with her gay boyfriend Dean because she is convinced that Jesus told her that it would "cure him" of being gay. She becomes pregnant, though, and Dean stays gay. Does that mean that Mary is stupid? That Jesus didn't really communicate with her? Of course not. Mary is a human, and humans get the message wrong sometimes.

2. Parents need to try and anticipate their kids' needs by paying better attention.
Mary is a senior in high school and finds herself pregnant. Just after she finds out, she is very upset (for obvious reasons) and her mom asks her what's wrong. Mary timidly tries to allude to a potential problem that she might be having and her mom decides to not be perceptive to it in that crucial moment by saying without looking at Mary, "I don't need to worry about you, do I?". Mary then decides that her mom couldn't handle the situation and hides her pregnancy from her. At the time when Mary needed her mom the most, her mom let her down. But the story could have been very different if her mom had paid better attention.

3. If something or someone in our lives is different and makes us uncomfortable, ignoring them won't fix the problem.
As soon as Dean's parents find out that he's gay, they send him away to a Christian "treatment facility" for the entirety of his senior year of high school. (This also falls under #2). Dean needed his parents to be there for him, and they literally pushed him away. His parents are never mentioned again in the movie, but in the end of the movie, Dean alludes to being kicked out of his childhood home. I imagine that his parents never got over their discomfort in the course of that film, and that's ultimately their fault, not Dean's.

4. True friends will help you through hard times.
In the beginning of the movie, Mary is friends with Hilary Fay, the most popular girl in their private Christian school. When Mary finds out that Dean was sent away, she tells Hilary Fay and Hilary Fay promises to keep it a secret. Not too much later, Mary finds herself pregnant and Hilary Fay tells everyone in school the real reason that Dean is gone. All of these things put together induces a very real faith crisis for Mary, and when Hilary Fay notices it, she tells Mary that they can't be friends anymore.
Conversely, Cassandra is the only Jewish girl at their Christian school and doesn't have any friends there because everyone is afraid of her. She figures out that Mary is pregnant and after a while they become close friends. They are both the friend that the other girl desperately needed, and they truly take care of each other. Cassandra tells Mary that Mary isn't stupid for getting pregnant, which is exactly what she needed to hear. Similarly, Mary never says anything judgmental about Cassandra's checkered past or lack of religious convictions.

5. If you want someone to know that Jesus loves them, treat them the way He would.
Cassandra is the only Jewish girl at school and everyone there is always trying to "get her saved". But no one actually tries to be her friend. So many of the people at the school preach to Cassandra about how Jesus loves her and how much better her life would be if she would accept Him in her life. How is Cassandra supposed to believe what they're saying when they ostracize her? In the end of the movie, you see Cassandra briefly say a very informal prayer. I think it's because she has a kind and loving friend in Mary, and she feels Christ's love through Mary's actions. The more we feel Christ's love, the less abstract He becomes and it becomes easier to ask Him for help.
On the other hand, in one scene of the movie, Hilary Fay and her friends attempt to exorcise Mary because of her faith crisis. Obviously, Mary doesn't appreciate it, and tells Hilary Fay "You don't know the first thing about love" to which Hilary Fay replies "I am FILLED with Christ's love!" and throws her bible at Mary. Actions speak louder than words, and Jesus Christ definitely wouldn't have done what Hilary Fay did.

6. You can love someone without agreeing with their decisions. (And you don't have to be vocal about it if you disagree with their decisions.)
Patrick is one of my favorite characters in the movie. He is a new kid on the first day of school, and his dad is the principal of the school. His dad (Pastor Skip) preaches to the kids at school a lot, and is a pretty typical, uptight Christian dad. Patrick develops a crush on Mary and his dad doesn't want him to date her because of her obvious faith crisis. In one scene, Patrick and his dad talk about how Patrick's mom doesn't live with them because she wants a divorce that Patrick's dad won't agree to--Pastor Skip's reasoning is that "Divorce is not a part of God's plan". Patrick isn't confrontational about it, but he clearly disagrees with his dad. After that scene, it is still apparent that Patrick and Pastor Skip spend a lot of quality time together and have a good relationship.
Throughout most of the movie, Patrick is continually trying to get Mary to date him, and though she likes him back, she doesn't feel like she can date him because of her struggles. When he finds out that she's pregnant at the end of the movie, it doesn't change his feelings for her. Mary is worried about it and says, "Are you sure?" to which he lovingly replies, "Mary, it really doesn't matter to me." He never even kind of mentions the choices that brought Mary to where she is, or what he thinks of those choices. He just loves her for the wonderful person she is.

Most importantly, 7. Jesus loves everyone, no matter what we do.
This is probably the most repeated theme of the film. Almost every character of the movie is depicted as having some kind of struggle, and almost all of them seem terrified of that struggle because for various reasons they think that Jesus doesn't love them anymore or won't love them anymore if they mess up. At the end of the movie, Hilary Fay makes a pretty big mistake and asks her brother (who doesn't consider himself a Christian) "Do you think Jesus still loves me, Roland?" And even he answers yes to that question.
In the same scene after Pastor Skip tries to shame Dean, Dean says "In my heart, I know that Jesus still loves me."

Even though this movie is a satire on Christian culture, I find it both uplifting and hilarious. It's refreshing to see an accurate depiction of the human condition that doesn't leave you feeling hopeless. Believing that Jesus is real and feeling His love in our lives is incredibly transformative. I'm so grateful for Him in my life.