As a little girl, I watched beautiful Disney classics like all little girls. Sleeping Beauty with her perfectly pleasant sleeping face, Cinderella with her fair-god-mother makeover gaining attention from across the room, and Snow White with her adorable singing as she frolicked around being lovely.
Before ya freak out, I know there are terrible lessons Disney could be teaching yet today I am choosing to affirm truth in the secular. I'm not here to tell you little girls shouldn't watch such thing but I do think its important to think about what natural female inklings have arisen in these movies and why that matters. Children's movies aren't the only place these ideas bubble up, it comes out in all music and movies as we continue into adulthood. Why and how can we decipher when the probable {created to be} princesses become princess problems {unhealthy obsessions}?
The Sleeping Beauty Struggle
When I was younger, we're talking teen years here, I would "sleep pretty". I would crawl into my perfectly-made bed at night, lye in the center of my twin bed, hair placed just-so, ankles crossed, and hands clasp across my stomach. Don't laugh. Okay, you can laugh. I had issues but "pretty sleep", eating disorders, and major OCD tendencies are for another post.
This was about being prepared if someone saw me sleeping. I wanted to be desired in my most unaware state. At my most vulnerable moment, when I had the least to do with how others viewed me, I wanted to appear calm, content, and casually...beautiful. This is how I would love to be all the time. At my worst, I'd love to be that girl.
The Cinderella Complex
When I got older, this didn't fade into some childish phase of the past. I would find myself craving to be seen and attempting to make that happen. I trying to create, as Jackie Kendall, author of Lady in Waiting would call it, "Chance Rendezvous” where my carefully crafted walks to class would hopefully get someone special to catch a glimpse of something spectacular I happen to do or cute I was wearing.
Where I needed to be was waiting for the "Divine Appointment" where God would create to potential for His best chose to notice the godly character I am working on daily.
The Snow White Wish
I must confess, even being married, I want my husband to happen to snag that desirable shot of me. Ladies know what I'm talking about, that day your hair played nice and your acne flair-up died down and you felt energetic and you had the patients of Job all at the same time. You want your husband to happen to notice your display of physical and characteristic beauty.
Why? Why does this princess problem creep up when we are obviously probable princesses?
Females are created with natural desires to BE beautiful; physically and characteristically. If and when we ever achieve these beautiful things, we want to be noticed for it. The pursuit of the Proverbs 31 is an unattainable life yet a godly desire. We are longing for a life once lived. The perfect life before Eve messed things up for us. The one our spirit innately knows from our core and is fighting to get back to through all this muck of sin.
Women are created to be seen. Not in a lust sense but in a out-in-the-open, unmistakable, distinguishable, note-worthy sense. Women are created to be noticed when they aren't trying to be noticed. Women are created to to for desire that surpassing carnality.
The trouble comes when we don't push past the muck of sin rather swim in it as if that's how we were created to live. Being seen for less than godly behavior is still being seen. THIS is where the princess problem occurs.
So what should dudes take away from this seemingly psychotic behavior?
Women desire to be seen. Women desire to be noticed when they aren't trying to be noticed. Women desire to be desired. Women need your help avoid the princess problem and live as the probable princess they are made to be.
See them. Recognize them in their unrehearsed, authentic, godly beauty. Desire godliness rather than worldly pursuits of prominence. Celebrate small victories with them as a way to restore the quest for purity in the probable princess.
note of caution: While most would harp on your for desiring such things rather than that of just Jesus, I would argue that our desire to be desired in this physical world is a mirror of the spiritual. Its okay to have these inklings but remember to refocus when our fallen men can't always meet all these needs. God always sees you. God desires you in the healthiest way imaginable. God is always looking, seeking, and finding you covered in the grace of Jesus who paid for all the junk washed away by His sacrifice.
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