Simba: Remember Who You Are

 There is something about The Lion King that becomes almost an entirely different story when you watch it as an adult. As a child, I saw Simba as a young lion who couldn't wait to become king. I saw the funny friendship with Timon and Pumbaa, the frightening battle with Scar, and eventually the triumphant moment when Simba returned to Pride Rock. But as an adult, I see a story about grief, guilt, running away from the things that hurt too much to face, and eventually finding the courage to return to the parts of ourselves we thought we had lost.

When Simba is young, he cannot wait for his future to begin. He wants to grow up, become king, make his own rules, and live without anyone telling him what to do. There is something wonderfully innocent about that because children tend to imagine adulthood as freedom. They don't yet understand that growing older also means responsibility, loss, difficult decisions, and discovering that sometimes life changes before we are ready for it to change.

Then Simba loses Mufasa, and everything about his world changes in a matter of moments. What makes the loss even more devastating is that Scar convinces Simba that it was his fault. Simba isn't simply grieving his father. He is carrying guilt that never belonged to him in the first place. He believes he caused the worst thing that has ever happened to him, and instead of running toward the people who love him, he runs away from them.

I think that part of Simba's story is incredibly powerful because guilt and shame have a way of isolating us. Guilt says we did something wrong. Shame goes much deeper and tells us there is something wrong with us. When we believe that, hiding can begin to feel easier than being known. We convince ourselves that if people knew the entire story, they might see us differently. Sometimes we even punish ourselves for things that were never ours to carry.

There are burdens we pick up because someone else handed them to us. Someone blamed us. Someone made us feel responsible for their choices. Someone convinced us that we should have known something we couldn't possibly have known or prevented something we had no power to prevent. We can carry those burdens for years without ever stopping to ask whether they actually belong to us.

Simba carries his for a very long time.

When he meets Timon and Pumbaa, he discovers a completely different way of living. Hakuna Matata. No worries. Forget the past, enjoy today, and don't spend too much time thinking about anything painful. There is something appealing about that, especially when the past hurts. Sometimes we desperately want permission to stop thinking about the difficult things. We want to escape the responsibilities, the questions, the grief, and everything that reminds us of what we have lost.

There is nothing wrong with needing rest from the heaviness. Sometimes laughter is exactly what gets us through. Sometimes we need people who help us remember that life can still contain joy even after something terrible has happened. Timon and Pumbaa give Simba friendship, belonging, laughter, and a place where he can simply exist without constantly being reminded of his past. I think there is something genuinely beautiful about that.

But eventually Simba discovers that avoiding the past isn't the same thing as healing from it. We can build an entirely new life around something we don't want to face, but the thing we buried doesn't necessarily disappear. Sometimes it simply waits. We can become very good at functioning around our wounds without actually allowing them to heal.

I think many of us have our own version of Hakuna Matata. We stay busy. We work more. We scroll. We shop. We take care of everyone else. We fill every quiet moment with something because quiet gives our thoughts too much room to speak. None of those things are necessarily bad, but sometimes they become ways of avoiding something inside us that still needs our attention.

Then Nala finds Simba, and suddenly the life he left behind is standing directly in front of him. She reminds him that Pride Rock needs him and that the people he left behind are suffering. Simba's first response isn't courage. It is resistance. Going home means returning to the place where his greatest pain happened. It means facing the story he has spent years trying not to remember.

I understand that more as an adult. Sometimes healing asks us to revisit things we would much rather leave buried. It doesn't necessarily mean physically returning somewhere or reopening relationships that are unhealthy. Sometimes it simply means becoming willing to look honestly at what happened. We stop running long enough to separate truth from the story fear, guilt, or someone else told us about it.

That is where Rafiki enters Simba's story in such a wonderful way. Rafiki doesn't simply tell Simba to go home. He helps Simba remember who he is. Simba has spent so many years separated from his family, his purpose, and everything that once defined him that he has forgotten something important about himself.

I think life can do that to us.

Difficult seasons can change our identity without us even noticing. We become the caregiver, the widow, the patient, the person who lost the job, the person whose marriage ended, the person whose child is struggling, the person with the diagnosis, the person who experienced the trauma, or simply the person trying to hold everything together. Those things become such enormous parts of our lives that sometimes we struggle to remember who we were before them.

Maybe the goal isn't always to become that person again. Life changes us, and I don't think every change needs to be undone. Some experiences deepen us. They make us more compassionate, more aware of what matters, and more appreciative of things we once took for granted. But our circumstances should never be allowed to convince us that they are the entirety of who we are.

That is why the words “Remember who you are” have always stayed with me.

There are times when I need that reminder too. I need to remember that who I am is bigger than the circumstances surrounding me. I need to remember that difficult chapters don't get to rename the entire story. I need to remember that the things I have lost don't erase everything that remains. Most importantly, I need to remember whose I am.

Faith gives those words an even deeper meaning for me because when I forget who I am, I can return to what God says about me. I am His. My identity doesn't ultimately come from my successes, failures, responsibilities, relationships, or circumstances. Those things can change overnight. God's love doesn't.

There is something incredibly moving about Simba looking into the water and eventually seeing his father's reflection. Mufasa isn't physically there, but Simba begins recognizing that what his father taught him hasn't disappeared. The love, wisdom, and identity Mufasa gave him are still part of who he is.

I think grief eventually teaches us something similar. When we lose someone we love, one of the hardest things is accepting that we cannot continue loving them in all the ways we once did. We cannot call them, sit beside them, hear their voice, or create another ordinary day together. But love doesn't simply vanish because someone is gone. Something of them remains woven into us.

We carry phrases they used to say. We make recipes they taught us. We hear their voice in our minds at unexpected moments. We catch ourselves doing something exactly the way they did it. We tell their stories. We pass along something they taught us to someone who never had the opportunity to know them. Grief changes the relationship, but it doesn't erase the love.

Simba eventually realizes that remembering his father doesn't mean remaining trapped in the moment he lost him. Perhaps that is one of the hardest parts of grief. Moving forward can sometimes feel like leaving someone behind. We worry that laughing again, building something new, or allowing ourselves to be happy somehow means the person we lost mattered less.

But moving forward isn't the same thing as forgetting.

Simba doesn't honor Mufasa by spending the rest of his life running from the place where he died. He honors him by becoming the lion Mufasa always knew he could become. He takes what his father gave him and carries it forward.

I think there is something beautiful in that. Maybe one of the ways we honor the people, experiences, and even difficult seasons that shaped us is by allowing what they taught us to become part of how we live. We don't have to remain permanently inside our grief to prove that something mattered.

When Simba finally returns to Pride Rock, he doesn't return as the carefree cub who left. He can't. Too much has happened. He returns as someone who has experienced loss, friendship, avoidance, guilt, love, and finally truth. He comes home changed.

Maybe that is what returning to ourselves looks like after life has changed us too. We don't go backward. We bring everything we have learned with us. We carry scars, memories, wisdom, and a deeper understanding of how fragile life can be. We aren't who we were before the difficult thing happened, but that doesn't mean we are less. Sometimes we become someone we never could have become without walking through it.

I also love that Simba's return doesn't magically erase everything Scar has done. Pride Rock is devastated. The land he remembers isn't waiting for him exactly as he left it. There is work to do. There are things that need to be rebuilt. Healing often looks like that too. Facing something doesn't instantly repair everything it affected. Sometimes facing it is simply where rebuilding begins.

There is hope in rebuilding because it means destruction doesn't have to be the end of the story. Something can look barren and still contain the possibility of life. Something can be damaged without being beyond restoration. God has reminded me of that many times. He has a way of bringing new life into places I thought would never look beautiful again.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons The Lion King has remained meaningful for so many years. Beneath all the music, humor, and beautiful animation is a story most of us eventually understand in some way. Life doesn't always unfold the way we imagined when we were young. We lose people. We carry things we shouldn't. We run sometimes. We forget ourselves. We find people who help us survive. Eventually, if we are fortunate, someone or something reminds us that there is still more of our story waiting to be lived.

I think we all need a Rafiki occasionally. We need someone who sees beyond the version of ourselves that has become tired, frightened, or lost. Someone who reminds us of things we have forgotten. Someone who doesn't allow the worst thing that happened to us to become the only thing we believe about ourselves.

And sometimes we need to become that voice for ourselves. We need to look at everything life has thrown at us and remember that we are still here. We are still growing. God is still working. There are still chapters that haven't been written.

Simba thought running away would free him from his past. Instead, freedom came when he finally stopped running and discovered that the past didn't have the power to define his future. He could grieve his father without remaining forever trapped in the moment he lost him. He could acknowledge what happened without accepting the lie that it was his fault. He could return home without becoming the child who had left it.

Maybe that is what “remember who you are” means to me now. Remember who you were before fear began telling the story. Remember what the people who truly loved you saw in you. Remember that your hardest season isn't your entire identity. Remember that grief and joy can exist in the same life. Remember that running from pain isn't the only way to survive it. Remember that God can still bring life into places that look completely barren.

Most of all, remember that you are still becoming.

The past is part of your story, but it doesn't get to write the ending.