PROM

PROM

“Fanny’s Dream,” a book by Caralyn and Mark Buehner, tells the story of a farm girl who decided she was going to marry a Prince.  When she heard that the Mayor was going to give a Grand Ball, she waited patiently in the garden for her Fairy Godmother to appear.

 But the only one that appeared that night was Heber Jensen with flowers in his hand.   Heber said, “Well Fanny, I’m not a prince and I don’t live in a castle, but I have one hundred and sixty acres, a little log house and I need a wife who will work by my side, through thick and thin, sweat and joy, and be glad for good food and great company.”

 They worked the farm, laughed, washed a lot of diapers and grabbed the baby and the twins and ran out of their house that burned to the ground when Davy stuck socks in the toaster…..

Finally….her Fairy Godmother did appear to her in the garden and asked if she was ready to go to the Mayor’s ball to meet a visiting Colonel.  She told her, “No.”

 Heber, who was reading a story to their three sons, asked her who she was talking to in the garden.  She told him it was her Fairy Godmother.  He said, “Oh, sure! And I’m the Prince of Sahiba.”  - to which Fanny replied, “Close enough, close enough.”

I had a close friend tell me, after she had been married to her second husband for several years, that if she had to do it all over again, even though she loved her current husband, she would have chosen to put the time and effort that was required to build a new marriage and deal with the confusion and challenges of putting “yours, mine and ours” together for the rest of her life, in to her first marriage.  

I call this "Prom."  I think there are marriages that fail because someone still wants to “go to the Prom” after they are married and marriages that never take place because someone decides to live their whole life going from castle to castle, to dance with Prince after Prince, Princess after Princess. Media has poured images of unrealistic living into our minds which has produced the age of the Prima Donna and Prima Don.  It is great to go on vacation, go out to dinner, have parties, dress up, go dancing.  It is when someone believes that is what their life should be all the time, that trouble begins.  Building a marriage and family is the most exciting adventure God has ever given mankind.  The chance to create something really beautiful is often destroyed by someone looking up at the castle and wishing that was their life, which ends up being no life at all – just a pretty dress, a tuxedo, a corsage – day after day after day.  And at the end of those days, where is the 39 year wedding anniversary celebration, with children singing “just for you” songs they have worked tirelessly to learn? Where is the rehearsed, choreographed and costumed performances of sweet or crazy remembrances that have piled up over the years by a family that worked hard together, as a team?  The house will burn down…..the baseball will crash through the window a dozen times, the 5 year old will go to church with no socks.   Someone will get lost at Disneyland, and someone else will rub butter all over his body and swim in milk and cheerios that are covering the floor. Cars will crash, teeth will get knocked out, limbs will break, a car will get stolen with all your children’s Christmas presents in it.  You will drive a big, huge, blue van with broken windows that smells like fish for years…and you will have a child ask if the whole family can pray for them before they take the MCAT, or apply for a new job.  You will hear twenty people cheer every time anyone does "anything." You will watch what happens when someone discovers who they really are.  You will watch a child find the love of their life.  You will see a daughter willing to reach up to heaven to bring a newborn child into the world…Big, bright, beautiful life lived by people dedicated to one another who are not distracted by the castle on the hill but look right in their very own garden for the Hebers and Fannys coming over the hill with flowers in their hand.