Dear Lacey,

Between your busy social calendar, rigorous gymnastics training schedule, drill team practices, and keeping up in school, it’s common for you to be very hungry and very tired by the end of every day. After Thursday practice you mysteriously turned down Cane’s Chicken Fingers, insistent you needed to get home and finish schoolwork. You barely managed to get through it all before heading to bed a little earlier than usual. I mentioned the possibility you may be getting sick, but you were absolutely determined I was wrong. Nothing was going to keep you from shining underneath the Friday Night Lights the following evening. After all, this was your very first high school football game which had been on your calendar since you found out you’d made drill team back in May. Hours of practice went into that first big half-time performance.

I was abruptly woken up at 4:00 AM. Despite your fever, chills, aches, and pains, you wearily asked if there was any way you’d be able to make the game. The realization this would be the only time this particular dance would ever be performed hit you hard. I emailed Coach Keene so she could start rearranging the dance formations around your absence.

When I went to the store to stock up on Gatorade, Sprite, applesauce, and popsicles, I threw a big strawberry Squishmello in the cart hoping it might make your heart happy. It worked!

You then asked if, for Nostalgia’s sake, we could have a Descendants Movie Marathon. Despite having seen every movie dozens of times back in your Descendants era, I obliged.  And I’m so glad I did! I am also glad we didn’t abandon ship despite how cheesy and painful these movies suddenly seemed to you.  We cringed at the over the top acting and obvious lip syncing, we belted out the lyrics that had stayed with us even after all these years, and we took turns laughing at each other! I especially laughed at you as you rapped “Queen of Mean” word for word several times through. And you especially laughed at me every time I teared up. I could not explain then what about the Decedent’s message resonated so loudly with my weary soul. This letter is my attempt to explain how these movies seem to capture the weary brokenness of this fallen and divided world, as well as the brokenness in my own heart. And while you might find my emotional outbursts at the very cheesiest moments hilarious, I think those Descendant’s characters get me! And I think there’s lots to learn from them about good and evil, and what it means to be human.

I suppose this storyline resonates so loudly with me because of my own real life rags to riches story. Having felt the sting of poverty, parental incarceration, and a broken home is likely why I can’t help but notice and be drawn to the hurting, the poor, the marginalized, and the outcasts. And also why I often root for the underdog or feel bad for the “bad” guy.  The Descendants capture perfectly the complexity of humanity and the potential for great evil and great good that resides in us all– regardless of our pasts or outward appearances.

The series opens with Disney villains having been banished to the “Isle of the Lost,” an island protected by an impenetrable shield. There is an appearance of freedom within their prison but crime and “evil” run rampant. Meanwhile, the “good” Disney characters, labeled “the heroes”, are living their best lives on the mainland. At the start of the first movie, a decision is made to allow some of the villain children a chance to become good, by leaving the Lost Island, and attending an elite boarding school alongside the children of the heroes. We follow the children of Jafar, Maleficent, Cruella Deville, and the Evil Queen on their journeys to find themselves despite their villainous upbringing and not fitting into “good” society. In the second movie the daughter of Maleficent is learning to discern good from evil, and to fight against evil as it arises. Even when the place she finds it happens to be inside her own heart or the hearts of those closest to her. By the third movie, a new villain emerges from among the hero’s own children. Blinded by jealously, and not getting what she believed was rightfully hers, Aurora’s daughter fully embraces bitterness and resentment leading her down a path of murderous destruction. Villains and Heros learn to look past their differences and jealousies to team up to destroy the true evil that had risen to power. So, in defense of my tears, I’ll offer five quick lessons we can all stand to learn from Mal, Jay, Evie, and Carlos.

1. Human’s are “Rotten to the Core.” Every one of us is broken, it’s just some of us are more aware of our brokenness than others, and some are better at masking our brokenness than others. The Villian’s wore their imperfection as a badge of honor proclaiming “It’s Good to be Bad,” while the Hero children fought with everything they had to keep their imperfections hidden. Scripture says it this way, “there is none that are good, no not one.“ To be human is to be broken. Only God is truly good even as He is the source and standard of all goodness.
2. Human’s are free to choose between goodness and evil. While most of us make that choice subtly and incrementally many times over a lifetime, Mal comes face to face with having to decide once and for all if she will be “Evil Like Me” (her mother), or find her identity apart from the childhood and culture which had grossly blurred the lines between good and evil. In the song, “If Only,” she bemoans: “What’s wrong. What’s right? Which way should I go?” She finally realizes what made her different from her evil mother was that she wanted to be good. C.S. Lewis said it this way: “If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why then did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”
3. To be human is to be always changing. We are all a version of who we once were and who we are becoming, and it is not always easy to reconcile these two versions of ourselves. Long after Mal decided she wanted to pursue good, she was struggling to make peace with her villainous past or see how she would ever be capable of anything good given where she comes from and the brokenness that still lurks in her heart. This is further confused when the latest trends meant that “Good is the New Bad.” What was considered virtuous in one culture remained in conflict with what was considered virtuous in another culture even as these virtues constantly changed over time. When she tried to draw a solid line between right and wrong or good and bad she realized just how deep and complex humanity actually is. But she also realized there was an evil and goodness that transcended time and space and the potential for great good or great evil that resides in us all.  Another favorite C.S. Lewis quote captures this tension perfectly when he says: “each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.”
4. The human heart is full of mystery and complexity. Judging another human by outward appearance is more foolish than judging a book by its cover. The Descendant’s song “Dig a Little Deeper” explores the insignificance of “what you look like” “what you wear” or “where you come from,” as measures for who a person really is. And the declaration that “money ain’t got no soul, money ain’t got no heart,” acknowledges the depths of a person’s heart and soul as the only measures by which a person can be really known. Proverbs 20:5 puts it like this: “the purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.”
5. Evil lurks behind every corner of this broken world, even the corners of our own hearts. We shouldn’t be surprised by it, but whenever evil reveals itself, we should hate it. “Life is not a fairytale, but it unfolds in chapters.” This line from one of my favorite Descendants songs explores how hard life is as a person’s story is full of fits and starts with no guarantee of a happily ever after this side of eternity. Mal knew this in her bones and settled to never blame her brokenness on her parents and to take responsibility for her brokenness and mistakes. Instead, she determines to step into her “Once Upon a Time” and fight the evil with good. Rather than being surprised, indifferent, or taking pleasure in evil, we too must hate what is evil and cling to what is good.

When you were little, your elementary school held a massive carnival every October. Confetti eggs, silly string, bounce houses, face painting, and the beloved cake walk. But, our very favorite part of the carnival happened at 3:00 after the last booth was taken down, and the cafeteria suddenly filled up with exhausted parents and sugar filled kids for the raffle drawing.

This was no ordinary raffle! Leading up to the carnival, your school hallway was lined with hundreds of the latest and greatest toys, sports equipment, crafts, trendy trinkets, ride-ons, gift certificates, and event tickets. For weeks, kids parade past this display of treasures, begging their parents to prepurchase tickets so they can begin writing their names on them in anticipation of the big event. On the day of the carnival, I’d follow my children around the raffle beginning a Christmas list based on which prizes claimed most of your raffle tickets. I’d also take this opportunity to teach you guys how to maximize your winnings. I won’t spill all the secrets here, but the most important one was this: hold back a percentage of your tickets until the last minute. Then put what you have left in the boxes with the fewest tickets. While the apple watch, American Girl Doll, and bicycle would have many thousands of tickets each, some of the boxes might only have three! That’s how Hallie won the electric toothbrush that one year!  Most years, you and your siblings each walked away with at least one new treasure, but every single year, we all walked away having the same conversations.

You see, there is something about a raffle that reveals the greediness, selfishness, and jealousy lurking in every human heart and reminds us that life is simply not fair. No matter what we won, there were dozens of things we wanted that we did not win. And there was always that one name every year that got called over and over again, meaning some lucky kid walked away with an unfair monopoly on prizes. Not surprisingly, more than once, your sister Kori Jane was one of those lucky kids. It’s one thing to have to be happy for a stranger or friend, but it is just about impossible to be happy when a sibling is the recipient of some unfair privilege or blessing. Or there was that other kid who only bought one single ticket yet still won the big prize. These small injustices were always more than little hearts could bear. Some parents opted to avoid tearful kids and skipped the raffle altogether. Others would immediately add the coveted toys to their amazon shopping cart as a way to ease the pain of their child’s loss.

But instead of avoiding or numbing the pain and loss you would inevitably feel, the raffle proved the perfect opportunity to help our hearts practice hating evil and clinging to good. After all, while feelings of anger, jealousy, and resentment are part of the human experience, it is evil if another person’s pain or sadness makes your heart happy.  Part of living in a broken world means constantly wishing things were different and deeply despising injustices. But it is always evil when a desire for justice causes our hearts to take pleasure in the pain of others or to celebrate someone else’s suffering. So, when jealousy, anger, fear, and resentment rear their evil heads in our hearts, we fight lest we become the evil we meant to despise.  We fight by thinking about our hearts and finding reasons to be thankful, knowing that the thankful hearts are the happiest hearts. Beautiful weather that made our ridiculously fun day even better. Our generous community and the volunteers that brought the carnival to life. The sugar still running through our veins, and the prizes we did win. Also, we choose to be thankful for the happy hearts of our friends and neighbors who won those prizes we really wanted most of all. When we cannot muster happiness for our happy friends, or when we find ourselves hoping our brother’s big prize breaks on the way home, we are honest about it without shame. When we want to demand that our sister give us half her winnings because we only got a new toothbrush, we ask God to change our hearts so that they might learn to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.

I was so proud of you this week when you watched the replay of the dance you were supposed to be in. Because you are human, it initially made you sad and a little jealous that your featured duet turned into a featured solo. But despite these completely normal human emotions, you choose to be happy for your team’s successes and moments to shine.

I wish that raffles and viruses and missing high school football halftime shows were the only injustices you ever had to be impacted by. I wish that fairytales were real and happily ever after was a guarantee. But sadly, you are living in a time when hating what is evil and clinging to what is good is more complicated than ever. Every conversation you have, every social media post you encounter, every short video you watch, and every person you love will throw a different version of right and wrong/ good and bad at you. What was considered good and virtuous by the culture (even the church culture) just a few years ago continues to change. As you get older, your opinions on faith, family, politics, and people will develop and grow based on your own personal experiences, proclivities, relationships, and education and by the shifting culture around you. You will realize more and more that the line between right and wrong and good and bad is not as solid or constant as you once thought. Life is hard and people are complex, with hearts as deep and mysterious as your own. You absolutely can’t ever judge a person by what you can see on the outside. But to be sure, we can judge ourselves and other people by what makes our hearts happy.

Aurora’s daughter, who proclaimed herself “The Queen of Mean,” was evil. She found pleasure in the destruction of anyone who did not agree with her perception of justice and reality. Blinded by jealousy and bitterness, she laughed and rejoiced in the suffering and death of her perceived enemies or anyone who would get in the way of what she deemed right. Maleficent enjoyed being evil. She found pleasure in controlling others by shame, force, manipulation, and fear. Power over others and causing others pain made her heart happy. Her daughter, Mal found pleasure in making her mother happy until she could no longer reconcile her mother’s happiness with other people’s pain. Maleficent was evil evidenced by the way she proudly celebrated evil. On the contrary, her daughter Mal was deeply conflicted about the difference between good and evil and ultimately strived to be good.

School shooters are evil. Laughing at or celebrating a school shooting is also evil. I do not know anyone personally who would disagree. But here is where it gets complicated. There are so many differing opinions about the causes and solutions to school shootings. Despite the temptation for all of us to think otherwise, having different opinions or debating our different opinions about the causes or solutions to school shootings is not evil. Having different opinions or debating your opinions about immigration laws, abortion, DEI, war, climate change, economic policy, or any number of current hot topics is not evil.

It is when your heart is happy about school shootings, that you have crossed the line to blatant utter evil. But also, if it makes your heart happy when the marginalized and vulnerable among us are killed, mocked, ridiculed, tortured, or separated from their families, that is also evil. Rejoicing or laughing when anyone is tortured or killed, is evil. This includes laughing or rejoicing when the rich and famous lose their homes to wildfires or when wealthy white children are washed away in a flood. If you take pleasure or celebrate when a perceived enemy (whether in war, culture, or politics) is brutally murdered in front of his wife and children and a crowd of students- that too is evil.

If there is anything for us to learn from the Descendents or from our current social media news feeds, it is that life is not a fairytale and evil is real. It is good to hate the evil we encounter in this broken world. But let us not forget to also hate the brokenness and evil lurking inside of our own hearts. Never stop paying attention to what makes your heart happy. Or what makes it sad. And may the only death you ever celebrate be the death of death, which was accomplished on the cross when your Savior was killed. God forbid we ever celebrate the very sin, shame, and suffering which our Savior died to defeat.

So, hate evil…yes! But also cling to what is good. Cling to the resurrection of Jesus and the goodness of his love, justice, glory, and grace. Cling to the hope of the coming redemption of all things in this broken world. And cling to the knowledge that while the battle between good and evil rages on in these last days- the war has already been won.

See, I’m not crazy! All that is why I was crying during our Descendants marathon! So, you can stop teasing me now.

Love,

Mom

P.S. “My love for you is R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S!”