The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)
Rated PG
Directed by Jeremy Kagan Walt Disney Pictures
Starring Meredith Salenger, John Cusack, Ray Wise, Scatman Crothers, Lainie Kazan
During the Great Depression, a teenage girl travels across the country in search of her father.
Opening Thoughts
Seventeen years ago this month, I sat in my pastor’s office trying to tell him why it was so important for me to leave that church and move on to a new church. To clarify, there was nothing wrong at my old church. It was a wonderful place where I had a large circle of friends and had been a junior high youth group leader for eight years. But a couple of months before that meeting with my pastor, I had met a group of people in a prayer tent at a Christian music festival, and something about the relationships they all had with God left me feeling hungry. I began to take a good look at my life and realized my own relationship with God had become pretty stale, in ways that had nothing to do with the church I was attending. I knew I needed more, and after many weeks of prayer and seeking counsel from Christian mentors outside the situation, I felt that God wanted to take me in a new direction in life. So I made an appointment with my pastor to talk to him about why I wanted to move to a different church.
He expressed concern, of course. He wanted to know if I was having problems with anyone within the church, if there were any unresolved issues, or any disagreement with the teachings of the church. He also wanted to know if the new church was a stable, safe environment for me. I assured him, over and over, that I had no problems with anyone or anything there, that I just felt like God had a new adventure for me. After listening to me explain everything, he told me he understood, and that if I truly felt God was moving me, he would respect my decision. We prayed together, and he wished me well, telling me I was dearly loved and would always have a home there should I need it.
I was extremely blessed in that situation, I know that unfortunately there are many churches and/or pastors who would have taken offense that I wanted to leave and go somewhere else, or would have told me I was wrong, that it couldn’t be God’s will and that I was hearing him wrong.
That’s why when I recently re-watched this movie, I was taken by Natty’s desire to follow her father, and all the resistance she ran up against when she decided to do so. How often in life do we come up against opposition when we try to follow our heavenly Father? Read on for what God showed me in The Journey of Natty Gann!
Spoilers For The Journey of Natty Gann here!
Natty Gann is a thirteen year old tomboy who lives with her father, Sol, in Depression-era Chicago. Sol is barely scraping by and is desperate to find a job so that he can take care of his daughter, but due to the Depression jobs are scarce. One day he is finally offered a job, but it’s halfway across the country at a lumber mill in Washington state, and he would need to leave the same day. Unable to find Natty, who is off on her own that day, Sol is forced to leave her behind. Before he leaves Sol speaks to Connie, who runs the hotel he and Natty live in, making her promise to watch over Natty, and says that he will send money for a train ticket as soon as he can. Natty returns home that night to Connie, who tells her nonchalantly her father has left her.
Natty waits for word from her father, and clashes daily with Connie. Finally, fearing that Sol will never send for Natty, Connie becomes fed up with Natty’s attitude and calls the police, reporting her as an abandoned child. Natty runs away and starts riding the rails as a hobo to make her way west and find her father. Meanwhile Sol calls Connie looking for Natty, and when he hears she’s run away, comes to look for her. When he hears of a train wreck Natty was involved in, he believes she has died, and in his bitterness and grief, takes on dangerous “widow’s work” at the mill.
On her journey Natty has many adventures, including befriending a wolf who becomes her protector. She meets all sorts of people, both kind and cruel, and never gives up her quest to find her father. She falls in with a young man named Harry who helps her on the last leg of her journey, and they share a brief romance. Harry invites her to go to California with him, but when Natty remains insistent on finding her father, they part ways with Natty’s first kiss. Natty eventually makes it to the lumber mill in Seattle where she shares a joyful reunion with Sol.
So What Did God Show Me?
This entry is going to be a little different than my usual bullet points, because after watching the movie I felt I wanted to focus more on what I consider to be the theme of the movie as a whole, which is Natty’s love for her father Sol, and how she will do anything to be reunited with him. I believe this is representative of the love between Father God and we as his children, how desperately we long to be reunited with him, and how the world tries to convince us that He doesn’t love us.
In the beginning of the movie, Natty and her father live together and love each other dearly. Their love is so strong it overcomes the lack of finances or securities in their lives, they are satisfied just to be together. They support and encourage and believe in each other. Sure, Sol teases Natty gently about not being “ladylike”, but he loves his daughter deeply and doesn’t try to change who she is. Natty knows this and therefore is able to be at ease with her father and trust him completely, knowing that she is loved completely just as she is.
Then, things change, and Sol is in a terrible bind. As a man on his own he would have been able to have more freedom, and could have gotten by on less. But as a father with a daughter, he has to make sure his beloved daughter is safe, well fed, and cared for. However, in order to care for his daughter and provide for her, he has to leave her. How could he leave her? Who would take care of her, watch over her, protect her? Sol had to leave his precious daughter with strangers and hope that somehow, they would both survive until they were together again. And would Natty understand why he had to go, to leave her? She was little more than a child, would she understand that he loved her, didn’t want to leave her, and that he planned to send for her as soon as possible? That this separation was only for a little while?
We were made for perfect relationship with God. He is our Father, and we are his beloved daughters and sons. He understands us better than we do ourselves, and loves us just as we are. When Adam and Eve were in Eden with God, everything was as it was supposed to be. The first man and woman were content just to be with God, and live together in communion and fellowship with him. But after the fall, the man and woman were forced to leave Eden, and although God would never truly leave them, they had to live apart from him for a time. Maybe they didn’t understand at the time, maybe it seemed to them that God had left them alone to fend for themselves and didn’t care. But God made them a promise that things would not always be this way, that someday they would be reunited.
Natty was betrayed by Connie, the person who was supposed to be caring for her. Connie had promised Sol she’d take care of Natty for him until he could send for her, but Connie didn’t like Natty and didn’t trust Sol, so she decided to take the easy way out and report Natty to the police as an abandoned child. Imagine how betrayed Sol must have felt, he had trusted Connie to care for his child. As Christians we are called to care for God’s children, to feed his sheep, to remind them that we are not alone in the world. But sometimes, like Connie, we get tired because God’s sheep are a bunch of babies, and all they do is whine and, we don’t really get along with that person anyway because they just have a different personality than we do, and why do they keep bugging us when we have more important things to do?? In the end, it doesn’t matter whether we like them, or whether they like us, or whether it’s easy or hard. It’s what Father God asked us to do, to love like he does. Even when it’s hard and we don’t want to. He’s trusting us to do this, to show his love to his precious children.
After fighting with Connie one too many times, Natty was desperate, and so she made a desperate decision-to go looking for her father. She couldn’t stay behind, otherwise she’d risk losing him forever. Natty didn’t know anything about how to find her dad…didn’t know where he was, only the state he was in. She didn’t have any money, or friends. She had no way to protect herself. All she had was her love for her father and a strong desire, superseding all others, to see him again. Have you ever felt that burning in your spirit, to be one with your Father God? To feel that ache being apart from him, and the longing to draw near and know him more? I have. It’s why when he called me to follow him down a new road at a different church, I didn’t hesitate. I pray you feel that longing, because even though it can be a terrible ache, it’s also a rich one, because it’s the ache that only Father God can satisfy. Everyone, everyone, should feel that!
When Natty was on the road, she had to rely on the kindness of others for her provision, and people like Wolf, the farm couple, Charlie the blacksmith, and Harry shared what they had to help her get that much closer to her father.
When I started at my new church, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and it wasn’t. At one point I had no car, no job, no insurance, and no money. The only money I could make was doing construction clean up jobs for my pastor from time to time. My mother paid my phone bill for me, and I was living off of the Panera donation my church got weekly. The only reason I wasn’t out on the street was because I was living in the church staff house. It was hard, having nothing, but I didn’t care, because I was walking so close to God, and that made all of it worth it. That was a sweet, sweet time in my life, not just because I was living in such sweet fellowship with my Father God, but because I was so dependent on him for everything in my life. But he provided! He always provided just what I needed.
At one point Natty falls in with a teen gang, who try to make her believe that her father has abandoned her and doesn’t care about her. They try to convince her that they can be her new family, and that she doesn’t need her father anymore. But Natty is hesitant, especially when she realizes they survive by stealing. She helps them steal a bull, but then is abandoned by her new “family.” How many of us have trusted the wrong people and been convinced to go against our conscience, doing things we know are wrong so that we will be accepted? Then Natty is abandoned by the gang, and is put in an orphan’s home, where they again impress upon her that she is an orphan, that no one is coming for her, and that she means less than nothing. Later in the movie, even Harry thinks her dad ran out on her. And when she finally reaches the logging camp, even then she gets there people are trying to tell her her dad isn’t there!
Sometimes it does feel like we’re all alone. Father God can seem far away, and doubt looms large. Is he truly coming back? Will we be alone forever? Does he still care, or has he forgotten about us? Maybe it’s all up to us, and we’ll just have to learn how to take care of ourselves, because He’s gone. Maybe everyone else is right, and he has forgotten about us, abandoned us, and left us to fend for ourselves.
Natty refuses to listen to anyone who tries to tell her such things about her father, and that’s why when the camp boss finds a letter addressed to Natty from Sol…what a vindication! Proof to everyone, even Natty herself, that her dad is alive, he loves her, he wanted her with him as soon as possible! He sent her a train ticket, he paid her way, he’s made a place for her! She has the proof right there in her hand! How she must’ve wanted to yell it from the rooftops and wave that ticket around for everyone to see!
We too have proof, God’s own words in Scripture, that he loves us and wants us to be with him. Proof that he had a plan from the very beginning for our reunion, proof that he made a way for us to be together again! Through Jesus’ work on the cross we never, never have to be separated from our Father God ever again!
Closing Thoughts
The end of the film features a joy-filled reunion between Natty and her father Sol, where they are finally together, never to be parted again. Someday, we too will have that moment where we run into our Father God’s embrace, and we will be held like never before, and all the hard times, the frustrations, the dangers we’ve overcome, the pain and hurts, will all be lost in the the satisfaction of seeing our Father face to face. Hold on, friend. Keep the faith, and keep going. That day is coming, so don’t let anyone try to convince you differently. We know better, don’t we?
Links I Like
Links I like:
“Honest Trailer” for the Journey of Natty Gann (This is funny because apparently Patton Oswalt, who is married to Meredith Salenger [“Natty”] requested this video)
I’d love to hear your thoughts! Drop your favorite part of the movie or how God has inspired you through movies in the comments!
Natty Gann Pics
- Title Splash – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm634622209/
- Natty Gann poster – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm1264929025/
- Harry and Natty on the Train – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm1406308609/
- Natty and Sol at house – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm164860161/
- Sol on phone – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm299077889/
- Connie and Natty – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm3134361857/
- Natty by river – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm986943745/
- Natty on truck – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm701731073/
- Sol on tree – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm1070829825/
- Natty with letter – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm3755118849/
- Natty and Sol are reunited – https://disnerdmoviechallenge.com/blog/review-the-journey-of-natty-gann-dmc-78
- Natty on farm – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm349409537/
- Natty in bed – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm1020498177/
- Harry and Natty – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm601067777/
- Natty and wolf – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089385/mediaviewer/rm4124217601/
