My baby girl’s new husband accidentally flushed her glasses down the toilet. She told me the story which was kind of funny, and which involved plumbing tools, wax seals and, ultimately, a new pair of glasses for her. Within the same conversation, my daughter told me her new father-in-law had forbidden her from driving her car until she got her brakes fixed. As a newlywed, she was having a frustrating and rather expensive week. In my most loving, supportive, motherly tone I said,
Welcome to the fairy tale.
Her father and I had thrown her a storybook wedding, waved her goodbye and wished her well, all the while knowing life wasn’t going to be quite the fairy tale she imagined.
Then again, maybe it was.
When our children were young, the beloved Swede bought a number of books filled with classic, quality children’s literature, stories, and poems. He and several other dads used to gather the neighborhood children one evening a week to read stories aloud to them. Among the books my husband purchased were Grimms’ Fairy Tales and The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, by Hans Christian Andersen. The stories in these books were not the Disney-fied versions filled with pretty, pretty princesses. These were the real deal.
At one point, our daughter started taking the fairy tale books to bed with her to read before going to sleep. When she started having nightmares about battles and monsters and ogres, we had to take the books away. Sometimes fairy tales can be quite disturbing, even frightening. Sometimes fairy tales can look an awful lot like real life.
In his book, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, Frederick Buechner described the real world and real life in this way:
It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name....That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.
So to my baby girl, I say again, “Welcome to the fairy tale.” Welcome, indeed, to all of us. May God give each of us grace to believe that happily-ever-after really is coming true.
Joining with emily:
25 comments:
You rock the truth so well,mama bear.
yes and yes and yes. fairy tale and Story, the good and the bad, the now and the not-yet, and the perfect ending wherein justice and mercy and Truth win out. love this.
Isn't it wonderful how we can so consciously participate in the creation of our own fully inspired myths?
oh i love this. and you. and i want to read that book. and how amazing your husband is... what a daddy!
Great thoughts. I sat with a friend over coffee the other day and tried to explain marriage to her. My basic argument, as I recall, was "It's great being married, there are just days you don't want to be anymore." In the end, you can't understand till you take the plunge.
Welcome to the fairy tale.
I love that line; I’ll have to remember to use it when my own daughter gets married in August. :-) Happily-ever-after is found in Jesus, and yes, is really coming true! Thanks, Nancy.
oh. my goodness. until i clicked on your link over at emily's, i had never heard of this book. it's now going on my "want" list for sure. i'm with suzannah: fairy tale and Story...two of my most favoritest things.
So true, I like how you see the reality of life but also the hope. I have read Buechner's fiction and have wanted to read his nonfiction, I will have to start with this one, unfortunately our library has none of his books. I am fortunate however to have a good indie book store where we live that sales used and new books so I'll keep an eye out. Thanks for sharing may your fairy tale be blessed this week.
"where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name"
I'm not sure why but this line just rocked me. A shiver ran up and down my spine in a good way. True name, I just find that exciting.
i have a copy of some original fairy tales, and they're quite disturbing. Lots of violence and child abuse, but these things really do happen to children, and I think there's something about facing these realities and beating them back. In the fairy tales it's usually the children who save the day, I feel a lot more comfortable knowing it's God who saves the day against real ogres.
I want to shield my sons from evil and scary and "bad guys"...but maybe I shouldn't. If everything's a fairy tale in the perfect happy ending sense, why do we need a savior?
Great post Nancy. Nice quote.
picked up Hansel & Gretel the other day to read to my group of 3-8 year olds and oops...forgot how evil that stepmother was. Had to share the gospel with them just so they wouldn't think any of the stepmothers they know would ever do anything like that. Its a great post and I do believe I will use the "welcome to the fairytale" line with my own newlywed daughter ;)
Yes---and I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down! Excellent post!
Awesome. "The Goose Girl" was my fave when I was a kid. Heroine carrying her mother's blood in her bodice...talking horse head...evil chick put stark naked in a barrel stuck full of nails and dragged behind horses 'til dead. I mean, no wonder I'm messed up.
sometimes i wish the FAther could take away our fairytales-before-bed, too. but i'm so glad we know the rest of the story, the real story and the only one that ever mattered.
and that does sound like a pretty amusing from afar kind of week!!!
she will do just fine...there is magic and mystery and plenty of things that never made the story book...but in the end it is a fun ride...
Glasses down the toilet! Wow! That takes talent!
It's easy to lose hope, so I find this reminder that there is a happily-ever after hopeful. Your writing always grips me.
Absolute truth!
Such truth in your words! We are all living our own fairy tales, closing chapters and starting new ones.
oh, what a perfect read for tonight. when it came time to tuck my boys into bed, there was an "incident", and i ended up lying beside my five-year-old for an hour while he fought the Evil in him that made repentance so, so hard. well, Good won, and now he's sleeping -- hard. :)
Wonderful words as always. Faity Tale indeed.
My husband couldn't wait to read "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" to our oldest son. (His grandmother had read it to him as a boy. I think he was remembering the moments with her and not the story.) When he finally did our son was petrified. It took him forever to go to bed that night. He wisely waited until our baby was older before reading his favorite fairy tale to him.
My word verification was sultumpa. Kind of fairy-tale-ish, no?
I loved the Shoemaker and the Elves, probably the foundation for my daily dream that the cleaning fairies with come in the night.
Fantastic post!
oh, i like this... it's so true, nancy. the 'happily ever afters' are embedded in hardship and sadness and dying to self and to each other... i like you, friend. :)
brilliant, Nancy.
I have seen your pretty face nearly everywhere I love to visit Nancy - so I thought it was about time I came to visit you.
I love this. It is so beautifully written, and it speaks so directly to my heart. I grew up on fairy tales and find that even as a Grandma I long to transform my everyday life into happily ever after.
I love the quote. It is so full of hope and joy. One day our King will come riding on His white horse to take us to that beautiful city.
Hey the Grimms gave me nightmares too! But I read them for the first time a few years ago (I was kind of sheltered as a child, maybe because I was afraid of everything...)
I love how true the phrase "happily ever after" is. I almost wish I titled my senior project that now... Dang it.
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