A couple of weeks ago, I re-watched Legally Blonde on Netflix for the first time in years. Immediately, I took a walk down memory lane, and it felt like I was a teenager again. I couldn’t stop smiling all throughout the film, and I even laughed a few times. Most of all, I was struck by the way Elle Woods – the main character in the film – took challenges in her stride. She effortlessly walked over and above what anyone said or thought of her. She kept her kindness in check and treated everyone with the gentleness they didn’t deserve.
As I watched the film, I thought, ‘There’s a lot I could learn from Elle Woods.’
The last couple of weeks has been tough for me, friendship and relationship-wise. People I thought were kind-hearted ended up having the least kindness towards me. This is a small town, so gossip and people’s opinions about me and what I’ve been doing made its round in my life as well.
‘I have a kind heart,’ I told a friend over coffee. ‘For some reason, I naively believed that others would treat me the same way.’
‘You’re not naive’ she responded. ‘You have a pure heart.’
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In the early 2000s, Legally Blonde was an American film that reached cult status quickly. Everyone at school talked about it. It was extremely popular; I think I even went to the movies to watch it.
Roger Ebert’s synopsis goes like this:
‘Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) has it all. She wants nothing more than to be Mrs. Warner Huntington II. But there is one thing stopping him from proposing: She is too blonde. Elle rallies all of her resources and gets into Harvard, determined to win him back.’
Legally Blonde is a featherweight comedy balanced between silliness and charm. It is impossible to dislike… Reese Witherspoon is so much the star of the movie that… she effortlessly animated this material with sunshine and quick wit. Despite the title and the implications in the ads, this is a movie about smart blonds, not dumb ones, and she is using her encyclopedic knowledge of fashion and grooming to disguise her penetrating intelligence.’
Elle stood out at Harvard because she dressed differently, spoke differently, and treated others differently. Everyone around her didn’t like that she decided to do things differently and to do things her way. In many ways, she was like a fish out of water, but she simply carried on with her tasks. She treated people the way she wanted to be treated, with kindness and respect. She didn’t gossip, didn’t break other people down, and refused to spread lies. She kept others’ secrets even when she knew it might cost her standing, and she was loyal and trustworthy to the end.
In other words, she was pure.
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Watching Legally Blonde made me realize how important it is to hold on to that purity. In high school and during my gap year, my peers loved to say about me, ‘You are so pure.’ For some reason, I thought they meant that I was sexually pure and probably even naïve. But now that I’m older, I know that they meant I had a pure heart. I believed in the best of others and always treated others with respect and honor.
This is something I know I have to hold onto, now more than ever. One of my prophetic words for 2022 is the double portion anointing, and I know that I have to work hard not to let offense creep into my heart. The offense keeps us from receiving the blessing.
I attended a church home cell recently, and the topic was about ‘How We Treat One Another.’ A simple topic, really, but it carries so much weight because we are constantly crossing paths with each other. No man is alone, really, and we will constantly have conflict. Offenses will come.
The woman leading the home cell asked us good questions, questions about what it meant to ‘abide in the Vine.’ I realized the connection there – and it’s an important revelation. Our source of strength comes from the Vine – which is Jesus. When we spend time with Him in the secret place, we get strengthened and replenished. We are simply the branch that is meant to carry fruit. Fruit such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, etc. But sometimes things are blocking the flow – it’s a blockage in the branch that is meant to carry those fruits. And offense can become a huge blockage. When we allow it to creep into our lives, we can no longer bear fruit. We get frustrated with people.
It’s important to keep those branches clean from any hurt, offense, bitterness, and disappointment. People are people, but we are called to rise above and beyond these things and to forgive one another. If that’s too hard to do, then we start by praying for those people. I promise you, your heart will eventually become soft towards those who meant you harm.
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During the second Encounter Evening the BSSM Alumni hosted in Jeffrey’s Bay in November 2021, a woman came up to me and prophesied the following: ‘I see a vision of all these giant trees. But then there’s this sunflower that stands out, that is taller and bigger than all the other trees. And then I see all these seeds that are being sown from this sunflower.’ She didn’t know what the vision meant, but I knew and immediately had an interpretation for it:
Just before the Encounter Evening had started, we were in pre-prayer in the art class at GLA. Bethel Church was broadcasting on the television, and Richard Gordon led the opening. I remembered how I had prophesied over his wife, Libby Gordon. ‘You are a giant amongst giants,’ I said to her. ‘Bethel has all these giants, but you stand out head and shoulders above the rest.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Often we see in others what we also see in ourselves.’
During that pre-prayer, I was reminded of that conversation, and I said to the Lord, ‘I want to be the giant amongst giants.’
And then this woman prophesied over me that I was a giant sunflower amongst all these other trees.
The seeds that she saw that was being sown, fitted with another recent prophecy someone else had given me. She said, ‘Every time you speak into someone’s life, it’s like a seed being sown into their hearts and it awakens a flame inside of time. Soon, it will become a wildfire.’
The seeds that were being sown from the sunflower were seeds of fire and revival, which will be sown into others’ lives. Soon, it will become an uncontainable wildfire.
This week, I asked my mom to paint a picture of this in watercolor. She made a beautiful portrait of the trees and the giant sunflower amongst it, and the seeds that are turning into flames of fire. I will put this painting up on my wall as a reminder that I am ‘The Giant Amongst Giants’ – which is what I wrote at the bottom of the painting.
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‘Hoë bome vang die meeste wind’ is a popular Afrikaans saying. Roughly translated, it means ‘The highest trees catch the most wind’ and this is where I’m headed going into 2022. I will do and say things that will make waves, and not everyone is going to like me for it. It’s hard to realize that, for I think the world would be a much better place if we could all be kind to one another, but it’s okay.
In the words of Elle:
‘You must always have faith in people.
And most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself.’
And that’s exactly what I will do.
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