#Unicorn Love Wins

Tags

fairy tales, faith, husbands and wives, love, marriage, relationships

For those who don’t know, a unicorn is a label sometimes applied by those who do not believe in women anymore or even in the existence of love. The fem equivalent would be a Prince Charming, that mythical creature you dream of, but when he shows up, he simply demands you clean up after his horse.

It’s sad to me, so many people are wounded and bitter about relationships, or struggling greatly in marriages, or outright suffering. The world too, likes to portray marriage as a dreadful thing, a heavy cross to bear, certainly the death of our sexuality, the end of our fun, the very death of our life force itself. Oh puh-lease. Pfffttt. We’ve got it all backwards.

Marriage is awesome. Love is not only real, it really does conquer all. I do believe in fairy tales, although not the disneyfication of fairy tales. For those familiar with the real deal, they are tales filled with truth, packed with the human experience, and not necessarily what we today would define as a “happy ending.” The Little Mermaid for example, is tossed aside in favor of a foreign princess, but when the only way to save her own life is to drive a knife through the prince’s heart, she chooses to jump overboard and kill herself instead. That is the true nature of love, poignant, painful, and often sacrificial. Not exactly Disney, but real and very human.

So, there is a tweet in the land of Unicorn Deniers that says, “..when women all of a sudden start posting updates with references to God, Jesus, being strong, out of the blue, it usually means she is having relationship trouble…”

Oh absolutely, guilty as charged! When in times of trouble, we lean into Him. Amen. Of course smart women also post those status updates about Christ when things are going well. Also when your man is just awesome and yet your sink is broken. Or the sink is working fine but your husband appears to be broken after a long day at work. My point being, Christ is there for us in the good times and the bad. Those of us in faith soon learn that a bible that is falling apart, will belong to a woman who isn’t.

As to being strong, something that is so misunderstood in the world, submission in women is not weakness. It is not passivity. It is not fragility. It is actually a position of great strength and power, wrapped in softness and feminine mystique perhaps, but the complete opposite of weakness. To be in a state of constant defiance and rebellion is actually weakness because it is exhausting, because it drains you of your energy, because it saps your strength. It is not true to who women are, it does not empower us, in fact it can deceive us into not even recognizing our own needs anymore, but rather endlessly seeking the approval of the world, responding to what it expects of us, rather than what we truly want and need ourselves.

The tweet goes on to say, “…Women frequently use Jesus as their substitute man, Indeed, when there’s too much Jesus in her status updates, you know her love life is suffering….” Oh, ouch! Bit personal there, wouldn’t you say? Also, a little amusing because possessing just a touch of modesty requires me to simply shut my mouth. Married or not, in the name of good taste, I cannot even launch a proper defense and present any evidence beyond, that statement about suffering love lives is complete poppycock.

Second of all, Jesus should never be anyone’s “substitute man,” he should always be our first man. He is what fills us up and from a place of overflow we are able to love earthly husbands more freely and confidently. Love comes from a place of abundance, not from neediness.

Do women romantize their relationships with Christ?  Yes, perhaps, to varying degrees depending on our personalities. I think we’re supposed to, we are woman after all, I think it is a language many of us speak. Love comes in many forms, love for our fathers, love for our husbands, love for brothers and sons. All those different kinds of love go into our relationships with earthly men, so why not with God, too? All in good humor here, but if you think women don’t love in many different ways, you haven’t watched women try to go all maternal on a husband who is trying desperately to avoid any nurturing, what he may perceive as controlling, motherly love. Bit of sisterly affection, married or not, and the man’s now shut out in the friend zone. God knows all of women’s various forms of love, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We find examples of that all through out the bible.

What becomes problematic is when men want a “Christian marriage,”  but outside the context of faith, they want a woman’s submission, but they resent that Christ must come first in her life, and they refuse to submit to any Authority themselves. That is just a complete disaster for all parties. No wonder there is so much suffering. People only have one piece of the puzzle and they’re trying to build a whole story and coming up with elaborate explanations for what is wrong.

Anyway, I am (or am not in terms of being mythical,) one of those fabled unicorns, one of many unicorns actually, one who believes in men, in marriage, in love, and in fairy tales. I met Prince Charming, bit rough around the edges perhaps, but charming just the same. He never asked me to clean up after his horse. In fact, he often asked nothing of me at all, and in the process taught me to also expect nothing but instead to learn to be grateful for everything. I am truly blessed and have his favor, but the favor I always seek first is Christ’s.

That is how #UnicornLoveWins every single time.