11 You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, 12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever. (NIV)
“Once upon a time…” Cinderella goes from wearing rags and sleeping in the hearth to being adorned in an elegant gown, complete with glass slippers, and married to royalty. Pinocchio is transformed from an unfeeling, wooden puppet into an honest-to-goodness flesh and blood boy. A warty frog is revealed to be a handsome prince and an ugly duckling matures into a beautiful swan. Fairy tales always end with –happy endings. Yet another poor casualty of youth along with Santa Claus and the Easter bunny as adulthood yanks us into the harsh truth of “the real world.” It’s beaten into us that it’s time to grow up and put such childish things behind us. Stop chasing silly dreams and outrageous fantasies. Life isn’t really like that. Prince Charming won’t show up to rescue you and there is no gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet, God’s fairy tales do come true. They aren’t fairy tales after all; mournful wailing becomes wild dancing and sackcloth garments are exchanged for robes of joy! God’s promises aren’t empty. He comes through for his loved ones and comes through in such an overwhelming way that we aren’t able to contain ourselves. Like all good stories, it ends the way it ought to: “And they lived happily ever after!”
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