Once Upon a Time

[The following is based on a true-life event. It is presented as if it's fictional because I felt like it.]

Once upon a time, a cute guy asked a short girl, who wore entirely too much eye makeup, to marry him. After twenty minutes or so, she said yes. He never let her live down the delay in answering. In all fairness to the heavily made-up girl, she was crying and unable to speak. She tended to do that a lot in those days. As the years went by, she changed. She cried more and she wore less eye make-up. Were the two connected? You decide.

The boy and the girl had many adventures. The stories piled up. They laughed and talked and walked and moved a lot and she learned how to cook and he learned how to fix things and they always had a lot of car problems and they wondered why U-Haul didn't give them a frequent customer discount. A few years in, there were more tears than laughter and things got really dark and they forgot to hold hands. They got lost, and for awhile, their marriage didn't look like it was going to make it. Their heavenly Father had other plans for them. Instead of allowing them to fall apart, He healed them and put them back together.

Many years into their marriage following many more adventures and tears and hidden paths and sunshine and trials and joy, they signed mortgage papers on a small cottage. Technically, it was attached to another cottage, but pictures taken from a certain angle tended to hide its companion cottage.

[Since this is a fairy tale, all discussions of economics and finances will simply be referred to as "the ogre" and all discussions of the boiler will be referred to as "the dragon." As we all know, fairy tales are about happily ever after and do not often contain terms such as "economics" or "boiler."]

Soon after moving into the cottage, perhaps five or ten minutes later, the boy and the girl learned of the slimy, smelly ogre and the fire-breathing dragon on the premises. Both of these creatures broke things all the time and sent perpetual notices for more gold. They wouldn't leave. The girl was convinced they were responsible for bringing all their pet snakes to live in her yard. She did not really like that. The boy grew weary of the ogre breaking the cars all the time, and both the boy and the girl were pretty tired of the way the ogre kept breaking appliances and computers and garage doors and TV's and things like that. Mostly the boy and girl were really, really tired of the fire-breathing dragon's antics in the basement. It hissed and spewed scalding steam and left black goo all over and clattered and popped and then got obstinate and wouldn't produce any heat at all. They called in dragon-tamers, one after another, but they all ran away or lied and said, "We don't see a problem." Finally, a kind, fearless, honest, and hard-working dragon-tamer arrived and suggested they get rid of the dragon, but the boy and girl, short of gold, decided to have the dragon-tamer operate on it instead.

Over the years, the dragon grew louder, more unpredictable, needier. The dragon-tamer came more frequently and more gold was required. The dragon was hungry. At one point, the dragon started screaming in hunger and the fire department came to look at it, but of course it stopped screaming when they got there and started up later that night after they were gone. The dragon tamer came the next day to feed gold to the dragon. The girl was angry with the dragon that day, very angry, angrier than she had ever been, and she told it so. After that, the dragon was remorseful for awhile, but not for long. The boy and the girl could frequently be found crouched before the dragon, peering into its fiery depths, hoping their presence would soothe the dragon. It didn't matter. The best dragon tamer of all became like family.

Then the basement of the small cottage got very, very cold. The boy wanted to call the dragon tamer, but the dragon tamer required so much gold for his magical services with the dragon that the girl resisted. Finally, the boy and ten degree temperatures prevailed and the dragon tamer arrived. The girl and her two handsome young princes greeted him, hoping the gold pieces required for his visit would not be too much. The kind, honest, and hard-working dragon tamer found that the dragon did have a cold spot in his fiery output. However, the dragon tamer found something else. The dragon was dying and when dragons die, especially basement dragons, they release toxic gas. Lots of it. This was very dangerous for the boy and his girl and his two young princes.

So, the boy and girl and their two young princes left the cottage for a few days, deeply disappointed in and shaken by the failure of their toxic dragon gas detector. The kind, honest, and hard-working dragon tamer assembled his dragon-fighting team, they donned their armor, and courageously removed the dying, fiery beast once and for all, quenching its poisonous spew. In its place, they left a gleaming sapphire dragon, full of quiet, hot fire. And the boy and girl and young princes returned home and sat in their warm basement and went in often to speak words of encouragement and welcome to the shiny blue dragon.

Unfortunately, the ogre remained on the loose, and began sending notices of requirements for gold. This was not good news for the boy and girl, but the boy and girl in this story? They already knew their happily ever after was bought and paid for by the Prince of Peace and they smiled. For nothing could separate them from the love of Christ Jesus, not even an ogre and a dragon.