Cinderella

Cinderella. When I hear love story I automatically think fairy tales. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast...PRINCESS AND THE FROG SAY WHAT? Okay, so that's a little different. I think CLASSIC fairy tales. There is a beautiful princess who is loved and adored by most people-BUT-she has an enemy. There is someone...or something...against her always. The evil step-mother or the Queen or the Beast; (in the beginning anyway) there must be someone against this princess. In every story we sit there-whether we like to admit or not-and hold our breath. We want to see the princess emerge victorious. Girls put themselves in the princess' glass slipper and imagine that it's THEM in the prince's arms at happily ever after. We are all mysteriously attracted to stories...but why?

I can tell you WHAT MAKES US attracted to stories based on my own personal inference. But WHY we're so drawn to them is beyond my logical reasoning. What I can say for sure is that God-the same God from the beginning who is drawing me to Himself-gave it to us. He Himself is a story, He created us as PART of His Story, and He loves to make Himself our personal story. We have a creative, mysterious, breath-taking, affectionate, majestic, beautiful God. He has no need for us and yet He created us. He could've created us to serve Him and yet He gave us free will. He could've made us mindless and empty and robotic and yet He gave us souls; He gave us passion and longing and the innate desire to hear stories and be a part of them. Do you see the creative glory of our God? Do you see that He didn't HAVE to make us with desires and dreams but did it out of sheer jealous affection? You see, God is a jealous God. He wants us to see Him everywhere. He gave us this window, this looking glass, called a soul so that we may turn around one day and reflect His Glory further. He shows Himself to us via stories.

Now we go back to my introduction: Creator God breathes life into me and I am surrounded by perfection. I am the result of His loving and ingenious work. He has great plans for me; He wants me to dwell with Him forever in perfection. But I have my own ideas...and Satan has his own ideas. Like I said, God GAVE us a free will....and NOT accidentally. He wanted us to have a choice all along. (And in fact, that is what makes it a STORY in the end. Otherwise it's just a bunch of facts) So aided by the enemy of God I chose to turn my back on my Creator and choose to go against Him. The music turns sharply to a minor key; the face of the the Creator darkens sorrowfully and the creation loses some of its radiance. The audience holds their breath and begins to lose hope. We trudge woefully through life and feel the taste of death prematurely. Tragedies occur in our lives that leave us broken and in pieces on our knees and we cry out to the Creator. We haven't forgotten Him, in fact we think of Him constantly because we let Him down and broke His Heart and want to go back to the way things were. We begin to lose hope. The step-mother prevails; darkness surrounds; we are in a love-coma, under a curse; we begin to think HE has forgotten us.

Then all of the sudden things turn again. The climax is approaching and you can feel it in the air. Things are changing and fast. Everyone hold their breath and waits to see what has happened. The Creator appears and smiles knowingly at you. You watch Him in a daze as He teaches you and loves on you...and then before you know it YOU YOURSELF-THE ONE THAT WAS CREATED BY HIS PERFECT LOVE-are driving nails into HIS WRISTS. You see, your disease has progressed so far that you are delirious and can't even make out that it's Him anymore. You watch His face twist in agony and feel momentary relief. There is no one asking you to change anymore; you feel the relief of a stone-hard heart. Under some strange compulsion of sin you watch as He dies up on that tree in front of you. The audience burns with anger because they KNOW that this is wrong. YOU made a mistake. You crucified the King of Glory. You had a chance to be saved by God and instead you killed Him in a fit of disillusioned rage. The audience groans. This is the part of Finding Nemo where Marlin and Dory get to P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney and find Nemo "dead". It seems as if the whole thing was quite pointless.

You go on a little bit from there...kind of breathless in the shock of what you've just done. Suddenly your mind clears and really lose it. The weight of your compulsion strikes you and your agony is unbearable. You realize that you killed God....you killed the beautiful affectionate mysterious loving Creator that you walked with in the garden. The One that you disappointed so much by going against. The One who came to live among mankind again and teach you. You just murdered Him. The grief is so overwhelming that you can't even move. You weep and weep and weep...everything that ever had meaning to you is gone. You destroyed it because of your selfishness. There is NOTHING that you can do at this point to change anything. You've gone quite far enough...and you feel the sting of conviction. Your heart breaks for your sin and you want nothing more than to die. For 3 brutally long days you lie there in a heap and mourn....everything you've ever done against Him from that first moment to this last one returns to your mind and you think of all the pain you've caused Him. The audience is sitting there waiting for this horror to end. It drags on for what seems forever...the pain of mistakes and the fallout of man. It looks like the story is over.

On the third day you are lying there completely numb. Your face is stained with tears and you want nothing more than to see the Creator again. Everything feels quite sharp and blaring...every time you look up at the tree where it happened you wretch. The music swells as you prepare to kill yourself-there is nothing more to live for. The mood is tense and sad and you raise your hand up to finish it off. The very moment before you kill yourself the earth shakes and trembles and booms and you are thrown violently. The planet growls with a glorious thunder and then stops abruptly. Everything turns from the gray it HAS BEEN since your disobedience to warm, glowing light.

You look down at yourself and see that your tattered rags have turned to a flowing white gown. You are so confused and wonder just what is going on-and you turn-and your heart skips a beat-and the music takes one final lift-and you see the Creator standing there before you with holes in His wrists and side. He no longer has agony on His face but relief-and perfect joy- because you are His again. You belong to Him and things are PERFECT as they were before. You fall down at His feet and cry tears of an overwhelmed soul. God explains to you that He is no longer just your Creator----now He is your Savior too. Since that day in paradise when everything went awry He had been waiting to reconcile you to Himself and when the time finally came He came to you knowing perfectly well what would happen. He knew that you would kill Him but He came anyway. His love has no limits-it doesn't even stop at death. He explains to you that when you killed Him it was in order to bring you life. Through the shedding of innocent blood is there life. You have undeservedly been created, and after you tainted the relationship you have undeservedly received grace. He tells you there is nothing you can do to take His love from you. Death has been defeated. You are sanctified and forgiven and held. Everything that had been haunting you since your fall has been destroyed and there is no more fear, no more death, no more pain.

Happily ever after.

You see, the reason WHY we love stories so much...why little girls idolize princesses...why preachers tell stories to get their point across...why Jesus spoke in parables...why we watch movies...why we write poetry and stay up late writing a blog post...is because WE are part of this story. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US. When we hear a story it reminds us of our own story that God started and ended was in every single moment of. God was even in the moment of horror when we wanted to die and were stricken with grief.

The Bible is that story....one big collective story of God's people and their fall, depravity and redemption. It's my favorite story. It's my story. I am Saul turned Paul. I am Peter walking on water. I am Daniel being thrown into the lion's den. I am Gideon. These are miniature stories-all combined to form one complete story-about each and every one of us. All of the things actually took place, but they are all pictures of each and every one of our lives.

Why do little girls make themselves look pretty and sit and anxiously await the arrival of their prince? Because written on their hearts is the story of the Creator who really came to rescue His princess. He has wired us with an instinctive knowledge of stories because He wants us to see what He has actually done.

And I will leave you with a book recommendation haha: If you want a book that tells our entire story in a clear captivating way, get "Story" by Steven James. It's one my favorite books in the entire world. So yeah.

and FINALLY sorry it took me so stinkin long to get another post up here. I'm gonna try to post more frequently. Thanks for reading =]