The Story of Cinderalla Turns Upon An Invitation

up until the moment that the courier from the palace arrives at her door, cinderella's life seems set in stone. she will always be a washerwoman, a cellar girl. her enemies will forever have the upper hand. she will live a life of enduring disappointments, though she will suffer them nobly. no other life seems ossible. this is her fate. then, word from the prince arrive--an invitation to a ball. it is at this point that everything breaks loose. her longings are awakened. her enemies becaome enreaged. and her life is never the same.

how gracious that it comes by invitation. as a woman, you don't need to strive or arrange; you don't need to make it happen. you only need to respond. granted, cinderalla's response took immense courage, courage that came only out of a deep desire to find the life her heart knew it was meant for. she WANTED to go. but it took courage not to abandon all hope even after she danced with the prince. (she ran back to the cellar, as we all do.) but she became the woman she was born to be, and the kingdom was never the same. it is a beautiful parable.

in much the same way, the invitations of God come to us in all sorts of ways. your heart itself, as a woman, is an invitation. an invitation delivered in the most intimate and personalized way. He has written something on your heart. a call to cultivate the beauty you hold inside, and to unveil your beauty on behalf of others. and it is a call to adventure, to become the ezer the world desperately needs you to be.

j. eldredge