To the Great Valley...

So I'm sitting here watching "The Land Before Time" (!!!) and am actually in awe at the amazingness of this 90s childrens film. For those of you who don't know the movie, first of all shame. Like really. You should know this movie. Anyway, it follows this group of five small dinosaurs on their way to the 'Great Valley'. When young Littlefoot loses his mother and is separated from his grandparents during the earth shake, he sets upon his journey to find the Great Valley, just as his mum told him to. Along the way he meets up with Sarah the three horn, Ducky the jumper, Pettrie the flyer/faller and Spike the spikeback, and together they face the trials of keeping to the path set for them.
Frustrated, Littlefoot cries out in desperation to the spirit of his dead mother "I tried to do what you told me, but it’s just too hard. I’ll never find the great valley." The dinosaur-shaped cloud then sheds light on the Great Valley before Littlefoot's eyes. It's such a beautiful moment.
The dinos are all reunited with their families in the valley of life, as the narrator calls it.

It makes me think..(of course..) how many times on our own journeys do we just give up and cry out because it's too hard, and we lose faith that we'll ever get there in the end? I can say that I do this fairly often. And I know that God always comes through and sheds light on what I'm missing, what I fail to see myself. This is encouraging.

It's a beautiful journey, one that I never realised or appreciated before. Seriously, if you haven't seen this, doooooooooooooo it. And if you did see it as a child, watch it again.

I'll let you draw your own parallels.

x becks