Rambling about the popular show This Is Us

• I have watched many episodes of the show, so I’m not commenting without experience.
• If you don’t watch the show, you probably heard something about it through social media posts – the show’s popularity continues to skyrocket.
• Why the show’s popularity? Good question.
• Clearly, This Is Us. This show reflects the lives of many Americans – broken, difficult, strained relationships – and all with clear roots.
• In my opinion, the stress over losing a dad like Jack plays very well to many Americans who’ve experienced traumatic losses.
• Jack truly portrays a hero’s hero – selfless to the end. One commenter even suggested he knew he was sick and waited until his wife left the room to succumb to his symptoms. Not sure about that, but it fits his character.
• Who wouldn’t want a dad like Jack – adoptive father, faithful husband, and work the fingers to the bone man?
• America and trauma. My fear is many can relate to the show due to unresolved trauma.
• None of the characters – twenty years after the shocking loss of a key character, has shown much progress in resolving the trauma.
• Alcohol, career, food, sexual pleasure, living out dreams – all of these at times dominate the characters’ efforts to move through life.
• I also wonder if viewers’ difficulty with watching the episode of Jack’s death ties into inexperience with trauma or unresolved in their own lives.
• Let me encourage you if you’ve read this far: you don’t have to stay stunted by trauma. The Bible offers real hope to countless traumatized individuals.
• Salvation itself – a right relationship with God – is indeed offered through the traumatic killing of God’s son Jesus. That murder represents the only sacrifice God finds acceptable for our sin. So, yes, God can relate. He invites us into relationship through Jesus.
• So I encourage you to put your faith in Jesus. Study God’s Word. You can find hope as God communicates He loves you and can use your trauma to shape you and form you into levels of maturity you may have never considered.
• So I’ve talked a bit about spirituality. Unfortunately, the show has very little if any spiritual element.
• Characters walking difficult roads without God who desperately wants to help. With a declining spirituality in our country and media, it does a good job of revealing that after all…This Is Us.