Spoiler alert:  if you haven’t watched Wanda Vision and you intend to, don’t read this!  Totally gonna spoil it for you here. 

So there’s this scene in the end where this woman is walking through the middle of town and every eye is on her with the most loathsome of death stares.  She’s the most hated woman around.  All the while, she’s dying inside because she’s just given up her whole world for these same hater’s freedom.  For some reason this scene just played through in my mind and I was struck by the realization that this scene is a modern day version of the most lasting of stories. 

Jesus walks through town, He climbs a hill, He rises above the masses of onlookers, and they look on Him with the greatest of disdain.  All the while, He’s dying because He’s giving up His life and His perfection for these same hater’s freedom. 

There are a few authors who have pointed it out before and I believe they all have it right.  All humanity replays the same stories with different people and different scenarios but the same themes on a loop.  We all understand sacrifice.  We all seem to understand unconditional love.  We paint the same pictures of relationship and acceptance and selflessness and longing over and over again with new faces and new genres but the same old desire. 

I believe it was John Eldredge who says that the reason there are so many fairy tales is because deep within us all is a knowledge of and longing for a true love that will satisfy and embrace us, sacrifice for us and complete us.  We create Prince Charming because He’s the longing of all our hearts.  He’s the child’s portrait of the lost soul’s desire.  He’s the imaginations way of visualizing the One who might ultimately fill our God-shaped chasm. 

It’s amazing how often in our non-religious, entertainment driven, carnal and temporal world we see vestiges of eternal longing echoing our greatest desires from the recesses of our creative imaginings. 

There’s a reason for this.  God has set eternity in our hearts.  God’s ‘invisible qualities’ have been on display for an eternity past and we all are, without excuse and without exception, aware of One who is Greater.  And the longing to know, embrace, and be known by Him oozes from our minds and hearts onto our screens, into our stories, and out of our every day desires. 

The Prince in your fairy tale, the Wanda in your tortured life, the true love in your favorite movie-He’s real and He’s here, and He’s the One you’ve been drawn to in every movie, show, book, and story line for a reason. 

He is not hidden and He is not distant.  He’s as available as your mind’s eye and as near as your dreams.  And He’s the fairy tale ending to the story of each of our broken lives.