She doesn't do anything wrong. You can't be mad at her. It's infuriating, and it's ironic. She has the hardest life of anybody, and she's the most humble of anybody. She doesn't pout, and she doesn't roll her eyes, and she doesn't sweat. She is responsible and kind. She looks lovely always, even covered in soot. She's submissive and an awesome cook, like a good wife is supposed to be. Other girls feel inadequate when compared to her, because no one can live up to her peace and simplicity.
Her prince is perfect, too; he's not into potty humor and he doesn't play FIFA. He's actually not a real dude.
Eventually in her story, Cinderella receives justice for the wrong done to her. She's an underdog. (We like to think we're underdogs). She's the chosen one, like Harry Potter and King Arthur: they all have a humble and abusive beginning, and greatness thrust upon them that they then thrive in ever so diplomatically.
We want to that - we want to be Cinderella. We want to overcome any disadvantage our childhood may leave us with and become the most successful, the most beautiful, the most wise.
So we work really hard. We don't take breaks. We always say yes, because saying no is unhelpful and it's selfish. We turn ourselves into martryrs (It used to be that a martyr was a person who sacrificed self for faith to the glory of God, but now it's someone who sacrifices general health and well-being for being seen as a hard worker to the glory of pride). We are blind followers of good feelings and we bottle up our frustrations because that's what Cinderella did and things turned out really swell for her.
We feel unnoticed and sorry for ourselves and convince ourselves that we deserve grandeur, and we strategize ways for other people to observe this about us, too.
We get frustrated by life, because life isn't fair. We look for reasons for the hard parts of life, and we convince ourselves that we are the victims here, even though we know that's wrong. Life is hard because of sin, and we are sinners. It's the truth, and the truth hurts.
Cinderella is just like Jesus (only not real). She's patient and kind, she endures all things, she's impossibly perfect, and she ascends to the throne after the climax of the story.
Jesus is real and Cinderella is not. Why do we try to emulate Cinderella more than we try to emulate Jesus? No one told us to try to be Cinderella, and we are told countless times in the Bible to be like Jesus. Cinderella can do nothing but disappoint us as we try and fail to become her. We were never supposed to be like her.
Cinderella is a character. Characters don't sin. They don't have sin patterns and they don't have to repent of anything. We can't be Cinderella because we sin. Cinderella is a pauper turned princess, and we are (still) sinners. We were and are and will be.
Cinderella can't do anything for us, and Jesus already did. He came to save us from this silly striving. Here we are, trying to turn ourselves from actual humans with personalities and vices into flat fairy tale characters. He saves us from that. He changes our hearts from wanting to be our own creation to being transformed into His own perfect and pure and complete likeness and creation.
Cinderella isn't real (Harry Potter isn't real. King Arthur isn't real). Perfect princes aren't real. But love is real and Jesus is real.
So this is love: royalty would voluntarily sacrifice grandeur for fools (that's us). And that's how we know real life is better than fairy tales.
Love,
Lauralicious
