Dreaming of a Fairy Tale Life

Growing up I read some fairy tales. I was a fan of Cinderella and Snow White. When I hit preteens, I became fans of the Hilary Duff and the Amanda Bynes version. I was a sap for a good love story. It was one way I was a typical girl.

However, mature adults often told me that life isn’t like the fairy tales and that we should be careful with the romantic stories we read and what fluffy books and movies we watch because it will cause us to have an unrealistic view on life, love and marriage. In fact, it was almost to the point that when I got engaged I was a little scared of marriage and what was to come because of the number of people that said it was going to be hard and the little I heard about the near perfect moments. While I agree, there is truth to this, I would like to suggest that the high emphasis on this view has caused some damage as well. I would like to suggest that there is another way of looking at it and that it isn’t all bad to dream about living a fairy tale life to some extent.

Now some of you may say, you have only been married a year, what do you know? You are still living in the honeymoon stage. Well that is truth, I also have lived through some pretty challenging stuff in my first year of marriage and I have had a glimpse of the dark side of marriage already. There have been moments that life is far from a fairy tale and I am glad I had some warning about those times and didn’t go into it blind, but what I want to emphasize, is those moments that were fairy tale like. Those moments that felt like they came straight from one of those fairy tales that I would have swooned over in my preteen years. I believe that unrealistic expectations in marriage can be damaging but I also believe that no expectations or dreams of marriage can be just as damaging.

So often we hear about the tough stuff in marriage. The ugly and the painful stuff. But there is so much more to it. There is so much beauty. There are moments over and over that you feel like the most important person on earth. There are moments that you feel beautiful. There are moments you joke and have so much fun. There are moments you laugh and laugh. There are silent and serious moments. There are moments of prayer. There are moments you feel perfect.

I want to challenge us all that if we are married to remember those fairy tale moments in the first year of marriage and continue to make them happen. I want to challenge girls who are not married and that have the dream to one day be, to remember reality, but to not be afraid of it and to look forward to those moments that come straight from a fairy tale. I want to challenge the men who will one day be married to dream of making fairy tale moments happen for your future wife in your life to come.

Marriage is a beautiful thing when we play out how God pictures marriage. When we can emulate the picture of Christ and his church. When we love each other, serve each other and lift each other up over our own selfish desires. Marriage is a life of service and love. Marriage is a high calling (not the only high calling) but even though marriage can be hard at times, there are moments that feel straight out of a love story. Don’t let reality kill your dreams to a point that you kill your fairy tale moments. Keep on living the dream while dealing with reality.