A New Fairy Tale

Ella Sweet and Strong
Or the thinking women’s version of the Cinderella story

Once upon a time there lived a sweet girl. Her mother and father were still very much in love. Her father was an important man, a noble man a friend of the king. Her mother beautiful and wise and both of them loved Ella very much. They lived happily together as a family should.
As often happens in a fairy tale, tragedy struck. Ella’s mother became ill and no matter what the doctors tried, it failed. A tearful goodbye was held as Ella’s mother passed to heaven. Her father burdened by his tragedy was never again as happy as those first years but he still loved Ella as his pride and joy. He told her often “You are my precious child and I will always be there for you.”
By Ella’s 7th birthday her father had married again. His new wife seemed a reasonable woman and it was a perfectly adequate arrangement. To Ella’s family was added a step mother and two older stepsisters. While her father loved his new wife and daughters, it seemed obvious; to them anyway, that he loved Ella more than they. He provided for their needs and loved them as a father should but they couldn’t stand it when they heard him tell Ella that she was his precious child and that he would always be there for her.
On Ella’s 12th birthday the unthinkable happened. Her father never returned from one of his many journeys on the kings business. Poor Ella! Her life was forever changed. Her step mother, hurt from her own loss began to take out her hurt on Ella. Instead of enjoying the same privileges as her own daughters Ella was treated as a servant. She was made to fetch and carry for her sisters who by this time had reached that age where they demanded everything and cared for nothing. Ella scrubbed the floors of HER family home, she cooked to feed those that treated her badly, she set the fires to keep them warm while she was shut away in her cold damp room with only their leftovers to fill her stomach.
About here, we as women, wait for the tide to turn, for the handsome prince on his white horse to rescue us, I mean her, to punish the wrongdoers, to make her beautiful, and take her away from all this.
Well, this Ella was a strong and determined young woman. She knew very well who she was. She was Ella, daughter of her wise and beautiful mother and her father, a nobleman, a friend of the king. She reminded herself often of her father’s words to her, that she was precious and that he would always be there for her.
She reminded herself of it when she felt cold, or hungry and especially when those who were supposed to love her, treated her cruelly instead. Though she often did the work of a servant girl, she carried herself as a nobleman’s daughter. Her father’s words repeating in her mind.
In her room she spent her time making dainty handkerchiefs from the leftover materials of her stepsisters many new dresses. When she went to market to buy the food for her stepmother she offered to collect things for her neighbours and with the coins she earned, ever so slowly, she saved and saved until she had enough.
Enough to hire a man, a very wise man, who had known her father and was well versed in law and things that Ella had never had the opportunity to learn. This man spent weeks and months searching and enquiring into her father’s matters. Ella worked on, despite her hardships, to ensure that she had enough to pay this man until his job was done.
Finally the man came to her with news, good news, news that would change her life! Was her father alive? Did this man find Ella so beautiful that he had decided to marry her and take her away from all this? Was she really some princess in disguise? No, No and a hundred times No.
Ella was all that she had been all her life. She was sweet and strong and sure of her father’s words. She knew she was precious and she knew that somehow even in the worst of circumstances he would always be there for her. The news was just some legal paperwork, hidden away in her father’s old workroom. The papers gave Ella the ownership of her family home. The same home that she lived in now as a servant she owned as the mistress of the house. A smile crossed her face that perhaps had not been seen for a very long time. Her father was there for her, perhaps not in person but his words on this paper proved that he was and always had been, there for her.
And her stepmother and sisters, did she throw them out into the street. Now remember this is Ella, sweet and strong, who knows her father’s words and carries herself as a noblewomen’s daughter.
No, although one of the sisters moved out to marry, let us say an “interesting gentleman”, and mother remarried and lives in the next town, they still visit Ella at Christmas. Her other stepsister has changed completely and now helps Ella run the family home.
Now Ella sews beautiful dresses for all those fashionable ladies, using the skills she learned in her cold, damp room. She sets the fires in her home to warm herself and those she invites in, because they have no place to go. She cooks and even scrubs the floors in her home just because she knows she does a great job.
Did she marry and have sweet children and live happily ever after, I do not know. But of this I am sure, she has always been and will always be, Ella, sweet and strong, safe in her father’s words, “You are precious and I will always be with you.”


The End

Me

OK it's confession time. I have finally nailed down one of my biggest issues. Yes, I have issues and yes, this one is big. I have, after much contemplation, realized that I have great trouble being me. There is somewhere deep in this psyche of mine an intense desire to be someone else. No hero worship, no one person I aspire to be.
No, just a nagging sense of wanting what others have. Perhaps it is a form of covetousness, but it is not the things themselves that I wish for. I don't need a new pair of shoes and having a manicure is highly impractical for my everyday life. Yet when I see or hear of someone with some thing, I have this gnawing sense that I need it too.
You see it is the things that define who a person is, that sway me; she is the girl who always wears flowers in her hair, or the mum who always bakes for her family and so I covet the flowers, the recipes, the definition that comes from these things. In my quiet moments, my thoughts billow and threaten to engulf me; who am I?, what is it that I love?, how am I defined?
These are thoughts that I wrestle with each time I 'sit awhile', each time I meet with friends, shop,or read. So why are they there? Is it a deep seated sense of poverty rooted in a childhood of very little possessions but no lack of any necessities? Is it an insecurity in my spirit, not fully assured of my place before God? Is it double mindedness as the things that are attractive to me are often trivial, shiny, so very transient in their nature? Is it purely self indulgence or simply an inner wanting to be appreciated by everyone, or is that one and the same?
Sometimes I crave for it all to be stripped away. All that is familiar, all that is 'normal and routine' in this life He has given me. For it to be stripped back until all that is left is the me without pretence.
And what I wish to be...so far removed from what I see myself. A deep desire to be strong, resilient, focused, unique, Godly...and what I am, often weak,overwhelmed, apathetic, just like everyone else and worst of all 'nice', not Godly but nice.
Ah to throw of the shackles of 'nicety' and be brazenly Godly! To know with full assurance, not only that He loves me and accepts me though His Son, but to know what to say, to think, to choose, to do! For every minute, every decision, every choice! To not be shackled by 'shoulds' or 'ifs' but resting, rejoicing in certainties. To "know who is me?" or to know "who is I AM!"