of truth and fairytales

I am caught up in a fairytale, somewhere near the middle. The beloved is confined to her chamber, making her preparations and counting the hours, for she knows her promised Bridegroom will come. Terrors lurk on every side, hardship and pain beset her from within, but the bride-to-be is undaunted. Her beloved one has pledged His love, and she is confident He will make good on His word.

It’s somehow easier for me to process this strange reality we’ve fallen into if I view it through the lens of an epic misadventure. Case in point: I am not just nondescript little me, sitting alone day after day, scrambling to teach a bunch of almost-8-year-olds from behind a computer screen. The greatest trial of my life is not debating whether to don a mask on the rare occasions I venture out to the grocery store, or which way to turn first when I pace the wooded subdivision near my home. Instead, I am a citizen of a foreign realm, held hostage by an unknown illness that stalks the streets, wielding death and destruction and terrorizing the populace.

It holds great appeal to believe that the King of my homeland is riding out even now in pursuit of my heart, that my solitude is about to be invaded—not by the enemy’s death-trap, but by the unquenchable desire of the One who seeks me for His own.

I know, I know … SO dramatic!

And what if it were true?

Maybe it’s the flowery language that disguises its validity; I’ll try again. What if the reason our world has been put on hold for this brief time is so our King would have free access to win our hearts more fully?

Okay, I admit … I can’t make it seem less like a fairytale! No wonder the watching world has a hard time swallowing our claims. The God of the Universe seeks an audience with us? How can that not seem incredible? Yet it is absolutely, beautifully true!

Maybe your world has become more complicated, not less, by all these restrictions. Maybe the forced proximity of those you love best has you frazzled. Or maybe you’re occupied with darker fears: loved ones in anguish, provision cut off, total isolation that’s morphed into torment.

Let me breathe a whisper of hope through the cracks in your prison wall: even here, your Prince will find you.

Are you smirking right now, perhaps laughing through tears of disbelief? If so, allow your trouble-seared heart to relax into the wonder of His love. For just this moment, become like a child who doesn’t need to see to believe. I’ll say it again: He is coming for you.

The Greatest Story Ever Told actually does come with a “happily ever after.” It’s just that that chapter, for us, is still being written. For now, we are living somewhere in the middle. Past the “Once upon a time” when we were first captivated by the song of our Beloved, we’ve been plunged without warning into a tangled plot twist. This is the point when even the most devoted reader finds herself holding her breath, wondering whether the hero will accomplish the rescue after all, or if he will arrive too late.

Will the maiden succumb to the illness, or waste away in her grief? Will her enemy overpower her and foil the plan of her champion? Or, worst of all, will she believe the lie of His betrayal and allow her heart to turn cold, accepting the strange seductions of her captors, and give up waiting for her lover to return?

All the best stories are full of heart-pounding moments and stomach-dropping descents, crafted so that the end will be more satisfying, will leave us wanting more. Yet this is not the end—this confusing, frustrating, even soul-numbing slice of current reality. This, my friends, is somewhere towards the middle. We haven’t yet reached the end, though we’re closer now than when we started. The Author is building, forging, shaping a scene that will bring us to our knees in wonder. But first, the trials must come. The losses, the separations, the reversals. The high must be brought low and the low raised up so that, on that Day, when He rides in at last on His snow-white steed, there will be no mistaking that He is the King. He will ride in with rejoicing, in triumph. His judgments will be swift and terrible, His reckoning pure and true. All who have arrayed themselves against Him will feel the fire of His wrath, but His beloved will share in His glory.

For in that final chapter of the prelude to Eternity, the fullness of His promises will at last begin to unfold. The King will sweep His Bride up behind Him, the one who’s been prepared for His coming, and ride with her through the gate of His eternal city, where there will be no more weeping or sorrow or pain. Bride and Bridegroom will walk the golden streets and feast together at the Banquet of Wine, where she will drink of the fruit of His covenant, and all will be made right.

“Not that we have already obtained all this,” we say with Paul, “or have already been made perfect. But we PRESS ON .. toward the goal to receive the promises of God, fulfilled in Christ Jesus,” (see Philippians 3:12-14).

We’re not there yet, Beloved; we’re still suspended in the center. But press on toward your “happily ever after,” dear one—the best is yet to come!