January 27, 2016: Tom Hanks winter marathon begins now

Have you seen the video that Tom Hanks does with James Corden on the Late Late Show where they act out all the videos he has been in? In under 7 minutes.  It's pretty amazing and if you haven't seen it, you definitely should. I love Tom Hanks, and through this video, I realized there are a ton of his movies I have never seen or even heard of. I made it my goal to watch as many as possible this winter. One of my friends here has a ton of them, so we started the marathon this week by watching "Joe vs. The Volcano.  It is from the 80s, has Meg Ryan in it, and is pretty phenomenal. I laughed the whole movie (it's so ridiculous!) but it also has some really deep moments that really touched me.  Joe is this guy who is basically a loser and is doing nothing with his life. He finds out he is dying, so this rich guy hunts him down and offers to pay for him to spend the last few months of his life to live out an adventure sailing to an exotic island. The catch is that he has to sacrifice himself by jumping into a volcano to appease this island god so the rich man can continue to use the island for his business. Still with me? During part of his journey, Meg Ryan tells Joe that out of all the people living life, only a few of them are truly alive, living life to its fullest. Everyone else is basically dead.  That really resonated with me. What does it look like for me to live life as someone who is truly alive? Being someone who loves Jesus, what does it look like for me to be living in a way that is always pointing back to Him? Because that's what being alive should be for me.  I love that Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and a volcano challenged me the way they did this week.