Grace is the Real Fairy Tale

They've moved with us four times in six years. They've found a home tucked under the bed each place we've lived. They bided their time high in a closet at my in-laws while we made our journey to Liberia. I could count on one hand the number of times they've been lifted from the box they came in.

I stumble upon them in one of these third trimester fits of nesting. Rummaging through the closet- a true fit of thrift store purging taking over- I find them. I slip the top off of the shoebox and the rhinestones catch my eye. Memories of a late October day fill my heart and mind full. I lift them from the box and it isn't the pristine white of shoes that I see. No, it is the dirt and grime that covers the heel and toes of these more-expensive-than-most-of-my-shoes-combined shoes.

I can't help, but think, isn't this the real story of marriage?

We enter into this covenant- pure image of Bride and Christ. We've got the dress and the shoes- flawless. We make promises to each other and this God who made us for one another. We revel in love.

Then our humanity gets in the way and reality sets in.

It is our flesh to fight. Our marriage to protect from the dirt and grime of the world. Inevitably the dirt and grime finds its way in. It dirties up the edges and makes us have to work to maintain love to hand out grace when there is hurt. We walk through the muck and mire together and by grace come out on the other side, together.

Cinderella gets plucked from the ashes. Snow White avoids a poison apple and lives her Happily Ever After. Belle loves a beast and finds a prince.

The basis for all good fairy tales is grace.

We're living one big fairy tale.

I gaze at these shoes and somehow they are more beautiful than ever. I squeeze my swollen, pregnant feet into them and feel like Cinderella all over again. Cinderella with dirty slippers and six years of a life lived with her Prince Charming- an imperfect, grace filled fairy tale.