Brave women finding their happily-ever-after helped me through my difficult childhood. Snow White and Cinderella were my two favorite fairytale fantasies. They helped me choose to see the good in every circumstance. However, they deceived me into believing that if I just believed, people would change, and I would have a happily-ever-after.
The Good and Bad of Fairytale Fantasy’s
I believe Walt Disney created fantasy stories to make people laugh, help them be brave, and persevere in hope. On this broken earth and in our imperfect human condition, we need these things. However, we need them from our Father, God, and our Savior, Jesus Christ living in us, not from make-believe.
Although fairytale fantasies are fiction, we often face some of the same elements in our life. We face difficult people and circumstances, we struggle with fear and self-worth, and we want our happily-ever-after on this broken earth. In our real life, every choice has an effect and consequence. We can’t wish our challenges away or pretend they don’t exist like in a fantasy.
If we used fairytales as a way to escape our childhood, to make sense of our pain, or to have hope and keep on going, we must be careful we are not doing the same thing as an adult and disciple of Christ. Being an adult disciple of Christ requires us to learn who he is in God’s word and learn that our faith, hope, courage, strength, and power only come from God. We must learn to walk with Jesus in our real-life every day and let him teach us the true definition and design of his pure love.
3 Ways Love is Skewed by Fairytale Fantasies
Webster defines fantasy as the power or process of creating especially unrealistic or improbable mental images in response to a psychological need. We can’t live in fantasy very long and still function in the real world. As disciples of Christ, we are commanded to share his love and saving gospel as we journey through life.
We can only walk with Jesus when we are fully present. However, Christ’s disciples can be deceived about what pure love looks like because they have bought into a fantasy, and they don’t know about Christ’s love design. Let’s look at the top three ways love is skewed by fairytale fantasies.
- Your prince will save you from the perils of your life. This fantasy comes from a desire for an imperfect man to swoop us away from our challenges and make our life perfect. To be fair, God gave us this desire to compel us to seek Jesus Christ as our Savior, but we don’t realize that at first. There’s only one Savior, and that is Jesus Christ. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. (1 John 4:14) When you look to another imperfect man or person to create your perfect life, you’re giving away your power, responsibility, freedom of choice, and opportunity to create your life with Jesus. Only God knows what’s best for your life now and in eternity. When you live as Christ’s disciple, he will help you overcome, just as he did.
- You automatically assume your spouse’s definition and understanding of love match yours. You are not taught to examine and define your definition and understanding of love and how it was formed. We create our broken love design from our experiences, messages, beliefs, fantasies, and role models. We see love from our perspective without thinking about how our spouse defines or understands love. Fairytales give us the illusion that we don’t have to ask questions once we meet and fall in love. We just need to get lost in the feelings and trust everything will be perfect. To really see if you and your “loved one” are even in the same vicinity of similar definitions, communications, and actions of love, you need to ask them.
- Finding your true love means everything works out automatically. Fairytales are built on this fantasy wish of a perfect spouse. However, a relationship is two imperfect individuals with two different definitions, understandings, and flawed love designs formed from birth. Fairytales don’t take into account that each spouse has free will. They can choose to keep living in the desires and sins of their flesh, or they can choose to learn and follow Christ’s pure love. One spouse can’t make the other choose to learn to thrive in Christ’s love.
Christ’s Love Design Trumps Any Fantasy
Even though we all begin with a flawed definition of love and unrealistic fairytale fantasies that have influenced us, we can learn to thrive in Christ’s pure love and live in a happy, healthy marriage and relationships. With the truth of God and the help of Christ, all things are possible. (Matt. 19:26)
Christ’s love is founded on the perfect love of God. His love consists of the two greatest commandments, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matt. 22:37-39) The example of Christ’s life and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Living in Christ’s love design helps us walk with Jesus and work with him to be transformed into his likeness even in our weakness and imperfections. We get to walk hand in hand with Jesus, our Lord, Savior, King, and friend, and learn from him. We get to dwell in his perfect love and learn to love others as he loves us.
No fantasy can heal, grow, and empower you to love others as Jesus loves you. To face the challenges of this broken world, we need to dwell in the perfect love of Christ. In his love, we can thrive regardless of the pain in our past, present, and future.
In Christ’s love design, we are never alone, and we can overcome living in any fantasy. There is no greater plan of pure, unconditional love on earth than Christ’s love design. Begin learning about Christ’s love by subscribing to my weekly blog.
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