WINSDAY WISDOM Session 13 SOAP OPERA DRAMA

Do you ever feel as if your life has become like a soap opera drama? Have you ever despaired that you made such a mess of life that no one could ever love you again? Do you know someone who has crossed that line?

Sometimes, we look at others’ soap opera lives and think they are beyond hope, maybe even beyond loveable. I imagine that you know people who seem hopeless for change. Perhaps, you have given great love and effort to help them; but now you are mentally drained and emotionally exhausted. Maybe you have already given up on them.  

The man in this session’s story was well acquainted with the drama and conflict of a messed-up life. In fact, in the soap opera world, he would be a mega star.

I was engaged in some physical rehab, working up a sweat on the gym’s elliptical. I watched the TV monitors, one on the news and the other on a soap opera. Apparently, someone was boycotting ESPN. The closed captioning carried the scripts below the picture.

I noticed this was the same soap opera which owned my grandmother’s unfailing devotion for years. She would do anything for you except during that one hour of the day. All the grandkids were under strict orders not to disturb her As the World Turns.

I do not know exactly why they call them soap operas, because they are not about soap or operas. Supposedly, the descriptive term emerged from radio dramas supported by soap manufacturer’s advertising. I still do not get it. Soap and operas have endings, but soap operas just tend to go endlessly on and on. Each story ends with a cliffhanger intended to keep the audience hooked with previews of future melodrama.

Soap operas are full of drama and conflict, problems which are never resolved. The tangled interpersonal troubles only move around town and spread to other characters, like some dreaded, uncontrolled pandemic. Reality shows are similarly scripted, just worse.

The storyline follows the characters’ physical or relational troubles and their greater emotional dramas. They fight with their family or competitors. They break promises and ruin lives, until they find “real” love, as opposed to the previous forty-two episodes of romantic experiments.

During television Sweeps Week, they get married, then return to their cycle of lies and betrayal and manipulation until love is lost. More drama ensues. Melodrama. Mega-drama. Trials, troubles, and tragedy are on repetitive cycles. What goes around comes around and goes back around as they Search for Tomorrow.

Several years ago, I wrote a script with a melodramatic plot intent on resolving the problems of every character in The Soap Opera to End All Soap Operas.

As the World Turns…All My Children… including The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, and the Blue Bloods of our Modern Family gather in our Full House where we discover This is Us has One Life to Live.

The Real Housewives, along with Grandmother Madea’s Family Reunion and cousins, Betty…Roseanne…Seinfeld…and Eddie, who is Not Smarter than a Fifth Grader, are All in the Family.

This is Us spends the Days of our Lives in a Family Feud at The Office or Parks and Recreation, on a Search for Tomorrow. They are listening for The Voice of that Masked Singer, while looking for the next American Idol.

Along the way to Nashville, Big Brother from Beverly Hills 90210 quits his job as Top Chef to play the Game of Thrones. He gets an Extreme Makeover as The Bachelor in The Real World…for 24 hours.

While Dancing with the Stars and their Friends at Melrose Place in Dallas, he stumbles along The Edge of Night without a Guiding Light. He falls with a Big Bang and gets Knots Landing on The Crown of his head. The accident broke The Weakest Link of his Grey’s Anatomy, which left him looking like Two-and-a-Half Men.

Hindsight would have been 20/20 According to Jim, but we had only 60 Minutes for CSI: Miami to rush to the scene with NCIS to meet Chicago Fire, P.D., and Med. 

Boston Legal took the case before Judge Judy at Night Court seeking Law and Order in Twenty-five Words or Less. The ruling was Deal or No Deal. One Jeopardy question remained: What Would You Do?  Call 9-1-1.

That sets off an Amazing Race to the ER at General Hospital where The Resident and The Good Doctor are no longer at New Amsterdam or in Private Practice. They have been fired by The Apprentice.

The Intern and Nurses diagnosed This is Us has been infected with a strange, rare disease called March Madness…a terminal Date Line…a Cold Case.

The Netflix binge series finale reveals the Wheel of Fortune prognosis of no Survivor. Everyone is sent to The Twilight Zone, St. Elsewhere, or Another World. There will be no Trading Places…The End. 

Most people live soap opera lives, no different from Erica Kane, except for her fancy clothes and makeup. None of us can find satisfaction in this world apart from God. God made life that way. For all of us, life is crooked, broken, or missing something. We cannot fix it or figure it out. We need God to find lasting happiness.

God’s Love has power to transform people—both the one loving and the one being loved. History records the stories of people whose lives were filled with melodrama of biblical proportions. Characters like Legion, the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, and the Old Testament Joseph were soap opera stars changed by God’s love.

Legion lost everything that mattered in life. He destroyed his family, shipwrecked his career, and blew up his friendships. His slippery slope story became a nightmare. He was a physical monster, an emotional wreck, and a social outcast.

The plot development was saturated with drama inside and outside. Frightened people practiced social distancing from his personal pandemic. He was Sleepless in Graveyards and Hopeless in Seattle or any other place on the planet.

Legion’s life was stranger than fiction. The stories about him were a bigtime ratings-grabber. He was a mean, mad man, like a scary monster in the movies, only the tales were real.

Others saw him as beyond all hope. Jesus brought His disciples to love this scary man who was no longer loved or loving. That encounter transformed Legion’s heart, soul, and mind.

God’s love gives hope to soap opera lives. Many lonely people go through life like Legion, dwelling in the graveyards of greed, gripes, and grumbling. They are among the Walking Dead who fight with family members, wrestle with addictions, and star in social struggles.

They feel desperately alone, alienated, afraid, and ashamed. They hurt and they hate. Self-destructive bitterness and self-inflicted misery know them well.

Legion was the poster child of a soap opera world without God, without help, and without hope. He was driven by the unrest that was in his soul, running in never-ending circles of nothing but misery. Socially alienated, spiritually unfit, culturally unacceptable.

It was humanly impossible to love him. He was the most hated soap opera victim/villain of all time. 

Jesus searched him out and that was the teaching point for the first disciples and anyone else following Jesus. There is no one beyond the help and hope of love. The Living Lord lives in us to lead us to those He intends to love through us.

Legion is one example of so many hopeless causes transformed by someone’s action to love first and love most. Transformed by love, Legion went home packing the most important thing in life, loving God and loving others.

In another example, a woman of ill-repute showed up at the Samaritan well in Search of more than just Tomorrow. Her soap opera role lasted many years, featuring five husbands and her present scandalous relationship. This soap opera diva’s shameful past and social status were prime news for tabloid gossip. She was the Whore of Sychar. Her daily trips to the well revealed a thirst for more than water or relational stability. She hunted for lasting happiness.

Jesus showed her love which transcended physical and emotional bonds. The living water of His love gave her life value, joy, and purpose. The transformed lady discovered the most important thing in life, love for God and others. She impacted her city for good.

The third character in the soap opera highlights was the victim of the self-righteous hypocrites on social media who shamed and terrorized an adulterous woman. Instead of being the scarlet letter star of this drama, she was about to be stoned. Not with a little marijuana, but with huge rocks.

This soap opera diva was trapped, humiliated, mocked, bullied, and judged guilty. The shaming mob surrounded her with threats of condemnation and punishment. Jesus stepped inside the circle of the self-righteous crowd and openly declared to the woman at the center of their hatred, “I do not condemn you.”

How do we love first and most in a soap opera world? Jesus showed us the way.

Transforming love always starts the relationship with no condemnation. Jesus invited the woman into a new circle overflowing with love and forgiveness. Love turned her life in a new direction, carrying the most important thing in life.

“Lovingkindness leads to character change” (#1 Textbook).

Any Biblical list of favorite soap opera stars would rank Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat near the top. His story had a long run in several countries.

Joseph grew up in a large family, most remembered for their highly dysfunctional conflicts with life and death consequences. The dad, who grew up unloved by his father, was an immoral thief and habitual liar who tricked his father and brother out of a fortune. Later, he cheated his future father-in-law out of girls and gold. Joseph’s dad was a con artist well versed in deceit, hatred, rivalry, and betrayal. Happy Father’s Day!                                                                                                                                     

The father had two wives with multiple children, all featured in their soap opera drama problems of jealousy, theft, and murder. One mother’s death during the birth of her youngest boy resulted in more family sadness, envy, and distrust.

The negative impact of growing up among that household might appear insurmountable.

Joseph, the favored son, lived on the Edge of Danger. He was abused, mistreated, bullied, and shunned by his older brothers. The Days of Their Lives centered around bad relationships and crime, not Good Times or Law and Order. A sister was raped, some brothers executed revengeful murder, and everyone became greedy, consummate liars just like dear old dad.                                                                                      

Joseph marched to a different beat. His love for God and others became a light in the family’s World of Darkness. Innocent Joseph survived a Sopranos-like murder attempt by his brothers. Abandoned and left to die, he survived again to be sold into slavery simply because The Price was Right. A captive in a foreign country, Joseph would be separated from his family for many years.

In his new Homeland, the Survivor Joseph engaged in manual labor and low-level jobs. He worked in the home of the rich and powerful; but when he refused an illicit advance by the lady of the house, her false accusations caused him to spend many years in and out of prison.

Replay the soap opera. Brothers’ betrayal…Family separation…Human trafficking…Horror of slavery…False accusation of sexual abuse…Wrongly imprisoned…Bad circumstances became worse circumstances.

Joseph was hated, lied about, forgotten, and left with no chance for freedom. No help and no hope–except for God’s plan.

God always knows where you are, where you need to be, how to get you there, and when to get you there.

Joseph stayed faithful and happy where God placed him. In jail, he cleaned cells and toilets while befriending the other prisoners. Even in the dungeon, he did not forget the most important thing in life. He continued to love God and love others.

God was with him, in him, over him, and under him. God moved him to become the top boss in the land, from where Joseph used his platform of influence to help others all over the world.

Joseph forgave and reconciled with his family; then he provided for all their needs. He boldly and assuredly announced what others intended for his hurt, God used for his good and for the good of others.

Through the physical, emotional, and social upheavals of life, Joseph learned to love first and love most. That kind of love changes the ones loved, as well as the one giving love. Joseph gave back love for hurt. He became a man of humility, happiness, and hope. His brothers became loyal friends and better fathers.

These soap opera stories convey an important lesson…the great value of loving one hopeless person. Jesus sends all transformed people back into their soap opera world armed with the most important thing in life, love for God and love for others.

The intriguing spin-off of each story featured the transformed characters as instruments of change in their families and communities. What a way to end a soap opera!

Are you living in a soap opera? Are you the star? The villain? Or just a family member caught up in all the drama? Do you feel as if you are the most messed-up hopeless person on the planet? Or do you live with or around someone who acts hopeless?

What can you do? Live in your hopes, not your fears. No one is hopeless. Our failures do not define us. Our problems do not disqualify us. Our drama does not frighten away the restorative love of God.

WHEN YOU GIVE LOVE, YOU GIVE HOPE! Daily contacts are the best place to start the Dance of Love. Begin at home, school, and work. Start among the people you already know, even if some of those people appear to be beyond all human hope.

WE ARE ALL ROUGH DRAFTS OF THE FINISHED STORY.                       

THANKFULLY, GOD ALWAYS WRITES THE LAST CHAPTER.

Decide to love first and love most. Develop a plan of how that would look in each relationship.  You do not need to take a ten-year or even a ten-week psychological or theological course before you can go home or go to work for the purpose of loving somebody else.

In any circumstance and in any relationship, a definite decision to reset the future purpose is always made from three possible options available:

1. We can give up and quit because things are hard or look hopeless.
2. We can keep things the same and ride out the season of life, just going through the motions while dying on the inside.
3. We can change the relationship for the better.

Give up. Stay the same. Change for the better. What will you do?

Limitless love is always an option on the table to make things better. End the soap opera. Be a difference maker. Stretch your side-by-side love wider, longer, higher, and deeper.

God lives inside of you to lead you to other hopeless persons He intends to love first and love most through you.

How do you stretch your love wider, longer, higher, and deeper?

Love Forgives Your Enemies. (next session)