Disney classics like Robin Hood (1973) make us crave something beautiful.
A longing, an adventure, a beauty, a battle, a happily ever now.
Yet for some reason, for some life-shattering reason,
it’s torn away.
How did we come to this?
How did we come to believe that our desires were something to be ashamed of? That we should be embarrassed to want something so good as a fairy tale?
How did we come to say that Disney has poisoned our view of marriage, of life, of battles and adventure?
How did we come to blame the story for the disappointment?
How did we get here?
All those childhood longings blow away like ashes in a smoky wind,
fading fast.
Therefore, to combat the disappointment, we anesthetize our desires,
and call them our weaknesses.
How did we get to that?
Yet let me say something,
something to wake you up,
to wake us up to our hearts.
The poisoned water was made pure.
You were made to fight.
You were made for love.
“Have we really been poisoned by fairy tales?
No, we’ve merely gotten the timing wrong.”
-John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire
John Eldredge points out our desperate situation, our impatience but also the hope. Wait, dear ones. For the story has just begun, it is in full swing, you are on the cusp of something great. You were not meant to be embarrassed by your heart. You were made to dream. How? We have been saved. As Mark Guy Pearse wrote, “This is the very meaning of our salvation, to turn the idle poetry of our wishes into solid fact that blesses men.” (Come Break Your Fast, 1898).
We have an Author, unlike what many Disney-raised, life-thwarted adults believe. We have a Blessed Hope that turns fiction into fact. God is a Man who satisfies our desires.”For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (Psalm 107: 9, ESV).
ISN’T THAT GOOD NEWS?!
It makes me happy. Like this:
Oh, quietly, carefully, He reminds of the dreams that I had when I was a little girl with freckles and a sandy-blonde swish. Time after time I plonked the black cassette tape of Robin Hood into our black Sony VCR. Whispers of desire grasped something I could not understand, not yet, no matter how many times I rewinded and played it again.
A story takes time, and as a little girl, I look back and see how I longed for the things I have now, many years down the track. A home in New Zealand, an adventurous and heroic occupation, a romance with the King of Kings. Now I can see, I wouldn’t have been able to hold and sustain what I have now– if it weren’t for the time God used to grow me.
Time. We haven’t been poisoned. We have been romanced, awakened to the cry of our hearts clamoring from a drugged cage.
Will we answer? Or will we just shut down our hearts again because of past disappointments?
He comes to reclaim us.
Will we let Him write our story? He longs to restore us.
Will we set our hope on Jesus? The one who satisfies the desires of every living thing.
So. Woah.
I can crave something beautiful…
and not be ashamed of it.
Photo credits: “Google Images” and special thanks to the myriads of people who got screenshots of this incredible 1973 cartoon.
