A Glass Slipper

Until yesterday evening, it had been quite some time since I had seen Disney's "Cinderella." If you're anything like me, having grown up on Disney movies, then you've got tucked under your belt a wealth of knowledge regarding movie details, not only characters and plots, but even songs. (Sing with me, now "I wanna be where the people are... I wanna see, wanna see them dancing...")

Well, I assumed I had that movie memorized, atleast that was until I caught something in the plot that never seemed of significance to me. At this particular point in the movie, Cinderella has just escaped from being locked her in room to come present herself to the Grand Duke. Previous to this, to both his dismay and the dismay of the evil stepmother, the glass slipper failed to fit Cinderella's stepsisters. This was her chance - because, of course, no one else could fit it but her!

After the surprise of her arrival in the room, the Grand Duke moves to fit the slipper on Cinderella's feet, when her stepmother trips the man and the glass slipper falls and shatters. A dream that should have been here's appears, atleast to those viewing, to have slipped away and been utterly destroyed. What I had forgotten, though, was that tucked away in her apron was the matching slipper.

She had it all along. It was her's and there was little to argue with that. In fact, it was the one thing left to her after the spell had been broken at midnight the night of the ball; the dress and even the mice-turned-horse-drawn pumpkin carriage lasted but an evening. But the slipper remained.

I am sure that what I draw from this is small in comparison to the beauty of this simple story, but it was enough to leave my head spinning for an evening, even until now. I think this part of the story, and the story as a whole, speaks a great deal to theme of becoming beautiful. There exists a beauty given to each of us that may indeed fit a role in this world, whether vocational or relational, but nonetheless lives in us and is innately our's (though we forget). And it is often times expressed or displayed outwardly, hopefully to brighten and inspire the lives of those around us.

It is fragile, though and many times seems to fall and crash before our eyes like that very same glass slipper. Because of our world, our culture, and the hand of the enemy in both, we are left to believe that in a moment of pain, of failure, of fear, or of attack - that it is gone and that all dreams completely destroyed. ...but that's just not so.

Because nestled somewhere, whether in folds of an apron or of your heart, is the other glass slipper - the beauty that is yours, that fits you, and that inspires dreams that only God can make come true through you.