Prince Charming

I really believe that Disney has set all of us up for failure. Every princess movie portrays a heroic man that comes hunting for their princess. Most are hidden away behind dragons or up large towers or in little tiny towns with evil families and the man does whatever it takes to go out, find, and rescue the girl. He is always clear and always perfectly romantic and it always ends with a happily ever after.

Growing up, my favorite Disney Princess was Cinderella. For my junior prom I bought a big blue dress and pretended I was her for the night. I even thought that I had found my prince charming and not going to lie, I think I really thought that he would see me all dolled up that night and realize that my slipper belonged to him. I thought that night would end in my happily ever after…or at least be the beginning.

There were several factors that made me very similar to Cinderella. In the movie, she invited herself to the Prince’s ball. I pretty much did the same thing by inviting this guy to my junior prom. Cinderella fled the scene at midnight…my date had to work the next day and dropped me off around that same time of night too. The only difference? He didn’t come back looking for my slipper. The night ended with a goodbye wave and a devastated Cinderella thinking that her life was now over because of the lack of attention from a guy.

I think one of the toughest things to navigate in relationships is the moment when the guy you have dreamed about and the guy that seems like a perfect fit is not on the same page as you. I have really wrestled and at times been angry with God about this. Like what is the deal? What is wrong with my slipper? Why would I have such strong emotions and desires for someone that barely thinks of me and how on earth did I get this far down my girl-craziness without even noticing that my slipper is being left behind in the dust?

Before I start revealing the answers I feel like the Lord has led me to in all of this, I want to first give you a boost of confidence and remind you that if your slipper is not chosen by the prince charming in your sights, “It’s not you. It’s him...” This is not at all to bash the guy that I mentioned above. Because the hardest pill for me to swallow was that he was and is still one of the best guys I know. His short-lived presence in my life is still a gift to me today but even though I am 26, still looking for my prince, I am forever grateful that it wasn’t him. Not because he is wrong, but because I can clearly see that my slipper was never a fit for him. It took time for me to make peace with and feel good about this truth, so if you are still fresh in the over-looked slipper stage, I want to make it very clear that the lies in your head right now are just that. They are lies. They are girl-crazy thoughts that were never given to you by God.

There is NOTHING wrong with your slipper. If he walked right by or coldly left you in the dust, that means HE was not the right fit for YOU. God has something and someone that is better. I do not believe this to be true because I have seen it to be true yet. I believe it is true because I have decided to trust God with my slipper and in doing so, I have been reminded of my actual purpose in life:

To love God and to be loved.

The truth is, this purpose is already our reality. We do not need a man and we were not created for a man. Yes, we were designed to desire these things, but this is ultimately to point us always to Christ. Marriage is a biblical concept, not because it is what we are called to, but because it is God’s gift and physical representation of His relationship with us!

Read Ephesians 5:21-33 with me real quick:

“Submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands also, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about the Christ and the church. However each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

There is a ton of good stuff in the scripture, most of which I need to spend a lifetime studying, but there are two major reminders I believe the Lord gives us through this passage.

1. Marriage is not a fairytale.

Did you cringe when you heard the word “submission?” I still do sometimes too because my independence and the ‘girl-boss’ culture I want to be a part of begs me to ignore this call. Disney says that I am Cinderella and that tells me that the man should be the one to provide for my every need and want. I should be treated like a princess, especially since I am a daughter of God. Girl-crazy thoughts at its finest! The truth is, we are called to marriage to ultimately be drawn closer to God. I am sure my married friends could speak more into this, but I believe that this is because submitting and giving your life to someone else is just as hard as it is beautiful. So we have to put down the lie that our love story is going to be as easy and as beautiful as the fairytales we grew up with. It is going to be hard and it is vital that the Lord is the one that has given up our slipper to Prince Charming. So if you are like me, desperately throwing your slipper at a prince that doesn’t realize it, it is time to hand it back to the one that will always take care of it! He built, polishes, and repairs your slipper every day and he will hand it to the right prince at the perfect time.

2. Marriage is not about us.

I love when authors of the Bible give us a confusing concept but bookend it in truth. The writer here is talking about all things marriage and actually says that the things he is talking about are really still a “mystery.’ But his main point is spoken both at the beginning and the end:

He says get married, “out of reverence for Christ” and then again at the end he says “this is a mystery…but I am talking about Christ.” I will probably, even after I am married, never understand marriage. But there is really only one thing that I need to understand. That it is for Christ that I am here and that I have this gift!

Have we left this truth on the steps with our dusty slipper? Have we become bitter at the fact that here we sit, still in disappointment, while our friends have traded their slippers in and are now buying baby slippers? This was definitely not the picture painted to us by Disney but that does not mean that the season we are in is useless, that we are purposeless, or that our life just hasn’t begun yet. In real life, the prince God has for you is not walking around looking on stair cases for his crying Cinderella. I hope that he is actively pursuing God, that he is out there growing and working through the dreams that He has for him. And I hope that for us too. Our slipper was never created to be left behind and never will be left behind! We can choose to stay behind, but this is not the path God gave us. We are called first and for most to show reverence for God. While we can do this through our marriage, we ultimately do this through our individual lives. So if your dream of marriage has not come yet, then start looking for the dream that is in front of you. Stop defining yourself as un-valuable, unnoticed, or unloved because this is not who you are. It is not you It is Him(God) and He says it is time to proudly wear your slipper without fear of dust or stairs or whatever your fear is today. He loves you. He has chosen you. And he has a purpose that is only for you. I pray as you read this, he is gently nudging your heart to that dream, that job, that next step that He has for you because there is so much more to life than the love of a man.

I pray everyday that the Lord helps me to see singleness and even rejection as a gift, so that when my slipper fits one day, I will really cherish and value it. Not because my Disney princess ending happened, but because God wrote my story more beautiful that even Cinderella’s. Don’t grow weary in waiting for His ending. Because it’s never been you…It’s Him.