I’m not a big "moviegoer." And I don’t typicality feel slighted if I’ve missed all the latest flicks. Honestly, a lot of them are poop with a side of more poop. However, God used a Hollywood production to speak His love, affirmation, and encouragement over me. It wasn’t a bestseller—but I’ll never forget it. And as weird as it sounds, I’m so very, very thankful for it.
The version of Snow White I grew up with was this short, naïve, fat-faced girl who danced around with little old men. It wasn’t my favorite. But this story was different—and it flowed deep into the cracks of fresh wounds needing healing.
The first time I went to see it was with my boyfriend, and I was sick with the fact that the queen was nearly nude in one scene. I almost walked out to “use the bathroom.” But I’m glad I stayed to watch it, because the power of it was that the queen was the embodiment of everything I was hurting about—she was the porn queen—tall, blonde, voluptuous, sensual, cool, you name it, she was it. And she was deadly. Literally.
After she murders the king, her new husband, while allegedly making “love” to him, she tosses Snow White to the tower, and the kingdom withers under her rule. The queen eats raw hearts out of birds and praises herself for giving the people of the kingdom the remains of the milk in which she bathed.
Although I’m pretty sure my hands were clenched just watching her and her antics, and I could have grabbed the chick by her slender, pretty neck, my eyes widened a bit, and my heart softened, when I learned of her story. I learned of how men abused her and that she suffered under a spell where her power came from her beauty—therefore she was its slave, beauty was her master, and what a miserable captive she was.
As long as she had beauty, she had power. As long as she was youthful, she mattered. But she, like every other woman throughout history, possessed skin that leathered and sagged with age, hair that lost its luster, and bones that no longer moved gracefully. So she would send for young women, and literally suck the life, youth, and beauty out of them.
But there was one in the land whose beauty was eternal. There was one whose beauty was defined not by merely the pretty lines of her figure and face, but the purity of her heart.
And it was her heart that the queen wanted. Literally, again. She wanted to eat it. (Gross, I know, but stay with me, because the imagery is beautiful.)
Snow White was summoned to the queen from the tower, but escaped into the forest, where she met the huntsman and the dwarfs.
The huntsman wondered why she was so wanted, and the dwarfs would have killed her if they hadn’t known: she was wanted for two reason, her heart, and for who her father was—she was the daughter of the king, and she had a pure heart.
Soft-spoken, innocent, and yet gutsy, I appreciated the portrayal of Snow White’s purity not as mousy, and yet not as overly sensual or “sexy” in the terms of the world.
Tricked by the disguised queen, Snow White bights the deadly apple, and waits for the kiss of her love to awaken her. And awaken she did. With raised voice, she calls her people to overcome the terror of the queen, and as she storms the castle, the sweet men of her life attempt to shield her from the queen’s touch, but this is a battle she must fight on her own. Usually chain mail looks pretty stupid on a woman, but somehow it works for Snow White.
After some thrashing about, she calmly declares to the queen, “You can’t have my heart,” and thrusts the knife into the queen’s heart. And for just a second, I almost feel sorry for the queen. My body, tightly tensed, began to relax.
And I wept.
I am Snow White. And so are many women trying to serve as women of God.
And in this wildly imposter "satan-sex" world we live in, I have been tempted to do two things:
1. Hate. Hate the women in porn videos and photos. Let bitterness run through my veins, instead of prayer and forgiveness as God forgave me—and a love for women who are so lost and hurting, and could be forced into such a life.
2. Give up my heart. See myself as a sex object. Labor to achieve a perfect body. Wear tight, revealing clothes. Move my body the way they say. Turn to colorful magazines. Sacrifice my body to the god of this world.
But to Satan, the CEO of the porn industry, I say this: you can’t have my heart.
And I mean it.
May Christ be the beauty of my youth, the power of my life, and the Purifier of my heart.
Keep the faith,
Audrey Ann
Photo Credit: Google (free) Images/ publicdomain-books.blogspot.com
Beautiful. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI love so much the way you said this. Thank you so much for sharing what God is doing in your heart and allowing it to bless mine :) Love you!
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