CineTV Contest: War Room

You sometimes have those days in your life where you feel like the whole world is on your chest, and nobody can hear you yell inside? That is The Dan Eaton watching War Room This film did not merely go past my eyes, it stuck to my heart, tightened it, and made me remember every battle that I have struggled with and no one was able to see it.

The narrative is about a woman, Elizabeth, who seems to have everything together on the surface. Her career, the home and a spouse. On the inside she is breaking. She has been trying to keep her marriage going and husband with no success when her husband is separating, a concept that she feels she could do nothing about. As I looked at her suffering I could guess my own.

I remember when I smiled out but cried into my pillow. Then there was Miss Clara, an old lady, red-hot and fearless, and she taught her, she taught her the greatest and secret weapon in the world which is PRAYER. Since that time I was not able to draw my eyes.

At first I wanted to tell Elizabeth to hush. Fight or don't sit down!. However the reality is that at times life can hit you so hard that you are not even left with the strength of fighting back. You simply live And this is where Miss Clara gave me the shakes. Her small war room, a prayer closet, turned out to be the battle field where the real struggle was fought- not fist to fist, not mouth to mouth but heart to heart. In these scenes, the suspense did not depend on car chases and gun fights but it was whether the damaged household led by Elizabeth can survive the war of Secrecy, pride and deceit.

The shows reach high into the seats Karen Abercrombie who played Miss Clara, did not personify a character. She seemed like that old lady everybody in Nigeria has, the lady who prays all the time so God must have her name memorized. As Elizabeth, the look in the eyes of Priscilla Shirer conveys in them the pain of loving but weary of not being loved back. I sensed her rage, her misgiving, her sobs. And T.C. Stallings who played the husband, Tony to her, showed us that men have their own demons they have to battle against and sometimes they lose until someone battles on their behalf in praying.

It is because the sadness in the War Room is made believable, true enough to be really sad. It is all too real: Spouses going on the skids, kids in the cross hairs, hearts turning to ice. It brought to me the memories of scenes in my life that I’ve heard and eyewitnesses when marriages broke not because there was no love, but because people were now smitten with pride and kept their vows. It is painful because it forces you to stare at your wounds, your family and your secrets.

There is a moment that I can never forget, when Elizabeth is lying down on the floor crying and her heart is bleeding to God in that little cupboard. I sat motionless with gooseflesh. I thought of occasions when I used to say a prayer the few times no one was checking, when I could not even put words together, just tears. That scene was not only a movie but a reflection.

The War Room did not make me desolate. The beauty is that. Then it smashed me, and then gradually pieced me back together. It reminded me that when life is overwhelming we women have a weapon that we often overlook, we can kneel. Not in infirmity, but in might. We have an opportunity to pray Prayer however does not just change the situation but it changes us.

When the family started to heal and Tony started to change my heart by the end of it, I was holding my breath. I hoped that it was not all a mere performance, that in spite of the destruction that occurred in broken homes, it is possible to repair the damage to a certain degree with God coming into the conflict. It gave me an injection of hope that wars are not won through yelling and bossing and dominance but allowing the One with more insight to win the battle at hand.

This film was a shock to me since it appealed to the wound places I keep covered. I simply could not watch Elizabeth in pain, because it resonated with my internal conflicts. However it did pick me up too, which few films have done. It was not only entertainment, it was an altar.

So when you ask me about the War Room, it is too much. And too much truth, and too much pain, too much hope. Or perhaps that is what we need. Since life itself is too much sometimes, and we need something more powerful than ourselves to make life go on.

If you want to participate in the contest, check the link below 👇

https://peakd.com/hive-121744/@cinetv/cine-tv-contest-142-movie-that-is-too-much