podcast@coffeetheologyandjesus.com

From Princess to Queen, What the World Desperately Needs.

Before I start, I have a few disclaimers.

1. This solely just my thoughts on the subject

2. This is a deep subject and I can’t address every aspect of it in one blog post

3. I’m not a woman, therefore I don’t know exactly how accurate I am.  Nevertheless, as a man, this is how I see things.

4.  For the sake of length, I will be generalizing, take it with a grain of salt.

A couple of days ago a few buddies of mine were hanging out after hours at a local coffee shop.  My friend is the manager so he opens it up for us after it closes down so we can sit around and talk.  Especially with life being so busy for so many of my friends, I find this to be a great time of catching up in each others lives.

During the conversation a friend brought up Disney and how he thinks it’s ruining young girls impressions of what being a woman is.  We talked for about an hour about the unrealistic fantasy a lot of these children movies present (such as Snow White) regarding finding true love in another person.  We all agreed that these movies can be great examples of Christ if you view Christ as the prince, and humanity as the princess, but as a child, it’s hard to see it that way.

During the night another friend brought up a point about how it seems like a lot of culture tells girls to be princesses, but never to grow up to be queens.  He went on to say that essentially we have a lot of grown up princesses.  Girls who never grew out of the princess mentality and now want the world handed to them on a silver platter.  That the view of their prince is someone who gives them everything they want whenever they want it, and when they don’t get it they kick and scream.  Spoiled was the word he used.

After we all disbanded and I went home I started thinking about that thought.  That girls are often taught to be the princesses, but not the queen.  It’s not that culture says that women shouldn’t be queens, they just don’t explain that as girls grow up they move from a princess to a queen.

Follow me here, I’m not saying that girls being taught that they are a princess is a bad thing.  I’m saying when they don’t see themselves as queens when they get older, we run in to a major problem.  Queens co-rule the kingdom with their king.  Queens can take on responsibility that a princess cannot.  Queens are secure in their position.  I can continue but you get the idea.

The problem occurs when girls are rarely taught that as they grow up, they begin to move from a princess to a queen. There’s an emotional maturity that begins to happen, and the view of themselves begins to shift from “Am I beautiful?” to “I am beautiful”.  Both parts are necessary .  This is a big complicated issue, one I won’t go in to here.

 

The result of this is staggering, we have a culture full of girls who are stuck mentally in princess mode.  Girls who either want the world handed to them, or girls who never were told how much they are loved by the person they needed it most.  Ultimately only Jesus can answer that question.  But when culture says to get that answer from a boyfriend, or a husband it sets up things for disaster

When we let culture dictate our image we come out with a very skewed image of how exactly life works.  Life is not happily ever after.  I’m not a pessimist I’m just trying to be realistic.  Your husband (or future husband) will fail you at some time because he is human.  The world does not revolve around shopping, your hair, or you.  (Don’t worry ladies, this is part 1, part 2  I get to lay in to us guys).  Queens are busy.  Busy doing work in the kingdom with their king, not sitting at home gossiping about what the other woman was wearing or what she said. A princess expects the world to be handed to her, a queen expects to change the world around her.

This is ultimately what I’m saying.  Girls need to  mature from the mindset of princess, to the mindset of queen.  Our world is in desperate need of women who know their worth, know their value, and are determined to be the beauty this world needs. Women and their power is extremely underrated.  Women breath life in to things.  Women not only physically birth life, they have the power to bring color to a black and white world.  When a women walks in the security of who she is the world changes around her.

This is part 1.  Part 2 will be from Prince to King.

 

-TW