Little girls grow up dreaming about meeting their Prince Charming one day, falling in love and getting married, becoming a princess and living in a castle – just like Cinderella did in the Disney movie. I remember going to see the movie “Cinderella” at the El Lasso theatre in my hometown of Uvalde, Texas with my daddy at the age of five in 1973. What I had to endure to get there is another story – eating all my Brussel sprouts, which had turned stone cold from my refusing to eat them. However, I was not going to be denied seeing “Cinderella”, so I shoveled those little green cabbages ‘down the hatch’ to make mommy happy; and off I went with daddy! Kissing a lot of frogs was also a part of my adult fairy tale; like Tiana in “Princess and the Frog” (another favorite Disney movie) who falls in love with Prince Naveen. Many girls also grow up and realize that their Prince Charming is more like Hans in “Frozen” – pretending to be a prince, but he is really an imposter. Regardless of whether you’ve grown up a princess and your daddy is the king, or you become a princess later in life – marrying a handsome prince is the goal in most storybook fairy tales.
When I met Michael for the first time on January 27, 2016 – it was definitely love at first sight. We dated for five years and then married on December 18, 2021. We are still married and very much in love. We had many things in common – faith, family, music and a love for travel. The “Love Chapter” from the Bible in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians is recited at many weddings, but I can tell you from experience that it takes both people to make love last. The most quoted passage is verse 13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” My parents were married for 56 years prior to my mother’s passing; and they lived a beautiful life together with God at the center of their marriage. Another verse also quoted in weddings from the Bible (and not from Cinderella) is: “A three-fold cord is not easily broken,” Ecclesiastes 4:12 The meaning of this verse is that if God is at the center of your marriage, the likelihood of it breaking apart is unlikely.
Childhood movies, such as “Cinderella”, teach little girls valuable lessons, such as: kindness to people and animals, longsuffering (called a fruit of the Spirit in the Bible). When we are treated cruelly by those close to us (stepmother and stepsisters in “Cinderella”), the importance of having a dream is what we hang onto. Cinderella’s dream was to go to the ball like her stepsisters and dance with Prince Charming. However, the most important lessons we can learn (as a child or adult) are not from “Cinderella” or any other fairy tale, but rather from The Bible – God’s design for marriage. And those lessons are: First, God loves us (John 3:16). Second, God created us in His image (Isaiah 43:1). Third, God sent his Son Jesus to die for us (1 John 4:10). Fourth, if we believe in Jesus, we too will live forever in heaven with Him one day (John 14:3).