Fairytales - Part 1

*I wrote this in August 2010 as a single woman living in Dallas and it helped so many of my peers. I decided to re-work it now as a married woman. 

"Have faith in your dreams and someday Your rainbow will come shining through. No matter how your heart is grieving, If you keep believing, The dream that you wish will come true." Cinderella

As little girls we daydream about our Fairytale Wedding.. As we get older, I don't think we stop wanting a fairytale relationship; I just think our concept of fairytales changes. We begin to recognize that Disney and Hollywood's "Happily Ever After” glosses over the actual journey of life… with all its challenges that make the adventure full of meaning. We begin to yearn for substance. We want a man to honor and respect us, to love us; as Christians we want that man to lead us. To put God at the center of his life and serve us as his first line of ministry, just as a woman should have her husband be her first line of ministry.

As a single woman when I lived in Dallas, I was encouraged when I saw God in relationships. Inspired that maybe my generation would change the divorce trend in the United States. With so many statistics going against us, seeing a faith centered relationship gave me hope.

There’s an old song I love by Sanctus Real called, “Lead Me”. If you haven’t heard it before, here’s a link . The lead singer, Matt Hammitt, wrote the song after he and his wife had a pretty gut-wrenching conversation where she told him that he needed to be a better spiritual leader to her and their family. Not surprisingly, it rocked Matt’s world. They had been married the longest in the band, with two children and a third on the way.  *He left the band in 2015 and he and his wife now have 4 children.

Matt said that he found it humbling that his wife would have the courage to say something like that out of love. Secondly, he realized that he had to do something about it. There was no way around it because they don’t believe in divorce. There were some things they had to work on to keep that open dialogue between the two of them so that they could admit problems and work through them. And that’s where the song came from. The song is kind of a father’s prayer for his family and wife. It’s an honest cry out to God saying, “If I’m going to lead my family, I need You to lead me.” 

Matt said, "I think the challenge for me in the song, and hopefully for other men as well, is every time I hear it, every time I sing it, I ask myself, ‘what kind of man am I?'  Not yesterday, not tomorrow, what kind of man am I today? Have I invested in my family emotionally, spiritually the way that God has called me to reach out to them and to lead them?” 

Here’s an excerpt from the song:

To lead them with strong hands / To stand up when they can't / Don't want to leave them hungry for love / Chasing things that I could give up / I'll show them I'm willing to fight / And give them the best of my life / So we can call this a home / Lead me, ‘cause I can't do this alone / Father, lead me, ‘cause I can't do this alone

What a POWERFUL, MEANINGFUL, prayer!  And what an encouragement that a man would have a heart to lead his family like Hammitt!

I love this edit because it makes our fall wedding look like a winter wonderland.
Just more proof that what is posted is not always telling the whole story.

Two years and one month after I wrote that blog post, I myself was getting married. I’ll tell our story another time, but we really were a testimony to God’s goodness. The men and women in our wedding party were the family and friends that walked us through our relationship. These were the people that encouraged us to recklessly pursue Christ; who sharpened, rebuked, and encouraged us while we tried to build a Christ-centered relationship in a broken world. We gave Him the glory on our wedding day knowing that it was nothing that we could have done ourselves. I've seen the amazing ways the Lord has restored relationships and brought life from death along the way, and, for me, it made our wedding day a true testimony of how much He loves me and the rest of the world...even when we don't deserve it.

Christ has a perfect design for marriage- a bride waiting for her groom as he pursues her heart, just like Christ pursues us, His bride.  And that should be our modern day fairytale ladies.  Waiting for a Christ serving man pursuing our heart..

It’s hard to learn these lessons when you are in the single life. 

I know. 

You may never fully understand until you are on the other side. But a friend once told me, “it’s better to be single and lonely than married and lonely”. While you are single take time to be comfortable with who is looking at you in the mirror. You might just find a life that suits you and keeps you joyful. A kind of innocent joy with grocery trips, movie nights, and cooking dinner with some of the most amazing people you’ve ever known. A kind of life that fills you up but leaves you empty enough for Jesus to come in and make you overflow. The kind of life that leaves room for improvement, moving forward, living dreams. A good life... a great life.  So each day make the decision to work, to try, to live. To exhaust every effort you have to be the best you Christ intended because the perfect he or she Christ has for you is worth it. 

For me, it's Because I didn’t want to die not sharing this love I have for people with everyone I meet. 

Because I want to know I gave everything I have to those around me.

Because I want to be 90 sitting next to my husband, in our rockers in silence because we can’t hear, but still be perfectly content. 

Because I want to LIVE.  And LIVE ABUNDANTLY!