I watched a young girl dance around her yard this summer; singing at the top of her lungs songs from the latest Disney movie, “Frozen”, and it broke my heart. Here is a little girl probably only about seven or eight years old singing about falling in love, as if it had been a missing piece of her eight years of life. Singing about being “free” to be herself and that for “the first time, in a long time” nothing was holding her back. Our society, and Disney is a LOT to blame, has indoctrinated us, since we were little girls, with the thought that our potential is cut short by rules and standards that our parents hold, and until we are free from those restrictions we are not really living. Yet, they have fooled us into thinking we are not complete if we do not have a drop dead handsome man, who is “perfect”, to sweep us off our feet and carry us into happily ever after. It does not matter the standards of the man, and it especially does not matter if he doesn’t have your parents’ approval (more “points” if he doesn’t), only that he is good looking and you are in “love”.
I can’t say that I am immune to all the fairy tale wishes; I too used to sing about being “A part of your world”, where I could shed the scales of a mermaid tail for the silky bare legs of a human. Spoiler alert: A handsome guy is included when you rebel against your parents’ wishes. I was lulled by the promise that there was “A whole new world” out there beyond the boundaries my parents put into place. Yet, I deeply wondered when my reflection would show who I was inside, because I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror, and I looked NOTHING like the perfect princesses that Disney paraded in front of me as the ideal standard of beauty.
I’ve learned that my life is NOT going to fall magically in place when Mr. Good Looking walks into my life. I’m by no means saying that love is not real, but I am saying I don’t think it looks anything like the fairy tales have led us to believe. Love isn’t always easy, sometimes it requires sacrifice, and sometimes you will get hurt. He won’t always treat you like a Princess and you won’t always treat him like a Prince. You won’t have mice friends to help you sew and clean and life won’t turn out like you planned. But, I can tell you that someone far better at planning IS planning your life and if you let Him lead you, it will turn out far better than you could have ever imagined. Being obedient to your parents will bring blessing in your life, after all it is the first commandment with a promise.
Exodus 20:12- “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
When life looks like it is not turning out the way we want, we need to check ourselves and see that we are not complaining against God’s plans for our lives.
As the later part of Philippians 4:11 says “…for whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
Being content in each stage of life God walks with us through will bring far greater peace than sitting in despair because you haven’t met your prince yet. To go along with being content we must also be content with the beauty that God has given us. This sometimes can be harder because the attack on the natural beauty God gave us ladies is everywhere! To put it simply: our perception of beauty should not come from Disney or anything else of this world, we were created by God and nothing this world has made, or will make, can ever be greater than the beauty that He created.
When we try to compare our lives to what we see in fairy tales it may appear as if we fall short. Yet, in reality we have something greater than any fairy tale. God paid the highest price He could pay by sending His Son to die for our sins, so that we can one glorious day join Him, as joint heirs with Christ, in our eternal home. The life we lead may not look like the fairy tales we’ve seen, but it shouldn’t, because we are a Princess not of this world.
Written by: Diana Clements
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