Marriage and Walt Disney

Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights.

I had the amazing opportunity to watch the Disney classic, “Sleeping Beauty,”with my children for family movie night a few weeks ago.  I guess I loved fairy tales since I was little, and so watching my seven-year-old daughter’s delight, as the prince fights evil Malificent’s dragon, was pretty cool.

But I tend to toss aside the fairy tales now in the trenches of being a soldier’s wife, and can often drown in the feeling of being solo with the kids at home.  If I am honest.  Yet, I know my active-duty, oft-deployed, husband is a gift from God.  But, still, I can wrestle, like many, with the whole marriage “fairy tale,” or “happily ever after.”

Fortunately, my wedding vows ring clearly in my head when my heart wants to forget the fairy-tale wedding.  I also have to dig a little deeper into my faith (when my flesh is digging a hole) to remind myself that I didn’t just promise my husband things on our wedding day–I promised others in the church, and God, too.  That is what the church is, Christ’s bride.  God reminds me that He promised Jesus, He delivered Jesus and He promises His kingdom is coming back when Jesus returns for it (the church, Christ’s marvelous bride).  On this side of heaven, this is a story I can’t wait to see through to the end.

But the fear that sets in my heart, of not making it to the finish line, doesn’t line up with the truth in God’s word that I am reading.  In God’s word, love wins, in fact 1 Corinthians tell us love never ends.  I am keenly aware of an enemy who would like to steal that victory, and one of the devil’s schemes is to sabotage our vows.  Fear that love isn’t true or enough to win the battles for God, or the difficult stuff in my marriage, is a lie.  I hate lies and I am steadily winning by seeking the Lord and diving into His truths found in the Bible, His holy Word.

The truth is my marriage was a blessing from the moment my husband gave me a beautiful diamond rock in his proposal.  The harder truth is that it isn’t easy, or right even, to stand on said rock.  I stand on the rock that is Christ (Psalm 19:14).  I know from digging deeper into His word in Isaiah “there was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him.  He was despised and rejected a man of sorrows acquainted with the deepest grief.  We turned our backs on him.  He was despised and we did not care.  Yet it was our weakness He carried.  It was our sorrows that weighed Him down”  (Isaiah 53:2-4).  I remember this when my rebellious heart wants to turn in my “mom” and “wife” jersey, or throw off my crown of salvation.  But what a loss that would be for the kingdom, and I don’t like losing.

So even in the rough moments, Christ has been there with me.  Nothing can take my crown of salvation away, and neither do I want to turn it in or toss it away. I don’t want to miss these moments when Jesus is in the fight for me and with me for peace in our hearts, and our home.

I want to fight in the battles for my children’s hearts to be surrendered to the Lord.  I want to stand with my husband, both of us arrayed in spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:10-31) when we sacrifice in the calling of duty.  Far from the fairy-tale we watch in the Disney movie, I don’t want to be a “sleeping beauty” in a stupor while the Lord is making a way for us.  I want to witness the fleshing out of our covenant promises to God in my marriage, and in my life.

But like the “Sleeping Beauty,” what an amazing privilege it is to be the daughter of a King!  In reality, I wear the crown of salvation and participate in work for His kingdom come.

When you face battles in your marriage, life and in your home, I hope you can see them as a meta-narrative of the epic fairy-tale of “Once upon a time there was a beautiful land, and an innocent couple.  An evil dragon entered and changed everything beautiful into brokenness.  A perfect Prince killed the serpent, restored a beautiful Kingdom, and they lived happily ever after.”  Our hero, that Prince, is our rescuer, Jesus Christ!

Finally, when I watch “Sleeping Beauty” again with my kids, I hope I see Prince Phillip not only slaying dragons, escaping dungeons and shielding arrows aimed at his heart, but perhaps I will imagine the fairies as angel armies magically turning the enemies darts into flowers, the dragon’s fire into water and the dungeons boulders into bubbles.  Real life magical moments like that can come into our homes and come into our marriages.  Our hearts were designed for them, and yours, too.

Questions to Share:

1.  In what ways did you expect your marriage to be a fairy-tale story?
2. In what ways do you need Jesus to be the rescuer in your marriage?  In your life?