A story...

Once upon a time there was a young maiden and a handsome knight. The maiden loved to dance, and run and play with her friends. One day she fell in love deeper than she could ever have imagined. She had loved before but never like this. She spent her days with this wonderful knight in shining armor and left her friends and dancing and running days behind her. The 2 were married and lived in a humble cottage that seemed like a castle to her. In her world all that mattered was that the 2 of them were together. Nothing else mattered, she had her knight in shining armor she had dreamed of and nothing would change her feeling for him. He worked and she worked and they returned to each other’s arms at the end of the day. It was heaven. Then the maiden’s life changed. A child was born, she quit her work and stayed home with her baby. She loved her baby as much as she loved her knight. But life changed. The maiden and the knight decided together that her job was to be home with their child teaching and raising their kids while the knight’s job was to be out in the world – slaying dragons and providing the family with their needs. More children came to the maiden and the knight. And difficult times began to arise in their dream land.
The years went by…
Although the maiden had agreed to be home with the children, she missed her days of dancing and running and she missed her friends. The handsome knight couldn’t understand. After all, she had him. Wasn’t that enough? It was for a while, but for some reason the maiden now saw she was missing who she once was and longed for her old friendships and hobbies she loved before she met her handsome knight. The maiden also learned that caring for the children sometimes was a really difficult job. She would burst into tears some days as she cleaned filth she never had envisioned in her future life as a mother and wife. The handsome knight tried to understand but he was away most of the day and only longed to be held by the maiden who was now tired and spent from comforting, feeding and cleaning their children. He had no idea she had been crying while he was away at work. The maiden found her old friends, other maidens that had married their princes and knights and they found out they were very much the same. Many maidens were holding back tears from the love of their life. Many were hiding the sorrow they felt at not living the dream life they pictured they would have. Some beautiful maidens now suffered from something even darker; a dragon had entered their homes secretly and quietly and lived invisibly in their homes, this breed of dragon was called depression. As the maidens found time to spend together, they found that this breed of dragon was more common than the common mouse. It lived quietly and secretly in more homes than most husbands were aware. The maiden and some of her friends sought for ways to fight this evil breed of dragon. Some found that they needed to bring back old hobbies, some found they needed to just have a good friend. Some found they needed to develop their talents of dancing and singing once again. The maidens that turned to each other found they could often times defeat the dragon called depression. But some maidens could not.
The young maiden of our story was able to fend off her dragon and even rid her home entirely of this dragon for a season. She found she loved getting other maidens together to reminisce good times captured in photography and assisted them in making their pictures into priceless treasures. This brought her great joy and she was at peace once again as she pursued her love of life with her friends. She was better able to be a mother and the lovely maiden her knight hoped she could be and she too hoped she could be. The maiden learned how to trust her knight and in his ability to care for her and their children.
The knight and the maiden I would like to say, lived happily ever after. But years went by. And as things often do for most people, they also did for this beautiful pair, life changed once again. The years of going off to work and slaying dragons ended for the knight suddenly one day. A terribly mighty dragon that no-one had seen coming flew into a castle in a city far away and destroyed the work the knight had. In a day, his ability to care for his family was ruined. The maiden was expecting their 3rd child and was already worried about her ability to care for another baby when she was still trying to get used to her 2 wild boys. And now her knight was not able to go out and provide for them? More dragons entered their home: resentment, anger, and depression came back as well. These were mean ugly dragons that tried desperately to destroy the love the maiden and the knight had for each other. The dark forces sent the meanest ugliest dragons possible to destroy love and hope. The knight did everything he could think of to try and take care of his young family, but some days he could not do enough. Food became scarce at times as work was difficult to find. The young couple would take time to discuss what they needed to do and ended up angry at each other. He couldn’t provide like she had hoped and she wasn’t saving them money in ways he had hoped.
The dragon of resentment grew stronger and stronger. One day the maiden found herself reflecting on the way her life had changed. What had happened to the young girl who stayed out til 3 or 4 in the morning dancing with her friends? What happened to the lovely girl that ran and exercised and took care of herself. She looked in the mirror and saw a sad matronly looking woman she didn’t recognize as the maiden she used to see in the mirror. She was sad and lonely and resented her knight for not taking care of her like he promised. She thought of the princes that had courted her and wondered if life would have been different had she chosen one of them. She got into her carriage one day and started to drive away from her home. The maiden was unaware of the dragon that was pulling the carriage. She thought it was her hopes and dreams moving her vehicle when indeed it was a dragon called resentment. As she drove away, she thought of the destroyed floors in her castle that her children had desecrated. She thought of the long nights with crying kids and scribbled on walls. And she thought of the knight that came home exhausted and impatient with her with barely enough money and sometimes none at all to buy needed provisions. She wanted to leave it all and seek out one of those princes. The ones that had all the money and bigger castles. She thought about the what-ifs and continued her drive. Suddenly she stopped and began to cry large tears as she realized that an evil dragon was pulling her carriage, not her hopes and dreams, but a viscous, angry beast bent on destruction was pulling her away from her family. She stopped and cried and opened her heart to the heavens. There was a long conversation she had with the one that would listen to her no matter where she was. She looked to be alone, but she knew she was not and she continued her crying and pleading that she needed to have to defeat this demon dragon.
She drove her carriage home. This time fueled by hopes and dreams even though she was returning to what she had viewed as her nightmare: a home with messy loud children that disobeyed her, an empty fridge and empty wallet and a tired overworked and underpaid knight that could never fully understand why she was so angry at him. In fact she couldn’t fully understand it either.
She returned home. No one was aware of her intentions she had earlier of leaving. No one knew, not her knight, not her kids, not her best friends or the leaders of her church. No one knew her pain that day.
But she was resolute that she would change things. The maiden could not change her handsome knight’s ability to find work. She could not change her Children’s behavior, she could not change the past. And she knew that if she sought for something different as far as her choice of husband and family was concerned, she would only find a greater meaner dragon of suffering called “regret” should she leave what she had.
No, instead the maiden had to learn how to become some sort of knight. A maiden warrior as well. She had to learn to fight for herself. She began to learn more about her talents that the heavens had bestowed on her to develop and share. She learned more about the love her handsome knight needed to be what she hoped he could be one day. She learned that there was no fantasy story she could live in and that her hope for that kind of life would only bring the dragon of resentment back into her home.
She also learned that to become a warrior maiden took something she had no idea she had: strength, determination and a fierce drive to do what the heavens hoped for her.
The maiden found herself on her knees asking the heavens to give her gifts she needed to fight dragons she never knew existed when she was a child. Her days of running in the mountains free of worries and dragons were over. They would never return. Her life was something different now. It was a time of fighting for her life and her family’s. And yet in the fight she found something else, she was stronger than she knew she was. She found amazing joy in her children now that she had not felt before when wasn’t a warrior. As a new warrior maiden life was more full, amazing and beautiful. She saw the dragons, she knew what they were capable of doing to her if she forgot her strength and power the heavens had given her. She learned to appreciate and love her knight more as they became warriors together. The dragon of resentment lost his power as she became something new, strong and wonderful. Her knight became more powerful too. His strength increased as his love for her increased. He watched her develop into a beautiful and powerful woman that could stand by his side. She was no longer standing behind him watching him fight powerful demons alone and fearful, she was next to him as was her rightful place. And their love for each other grew more each day. The joy in their hearts increased as they learned of the power they had always been given from the Heavens that could only happen when they learned how to stand next to each other instead of behind one another. It was a powerful kind of force never witnessed before by either of them. As this power grew, the young maiden was more able to see her life as something new and wonderful.
One day the maiden stood in the middle of her home watching her rambunctious noisy kids jump on the furniture and yelling nonsensical words at each other. There they were – the same kind of creatures that years before sent her into tears with their messes and noise. But now she could stand and laugh with them. These amazing creatures brought her joy… something she had not seen in them years before. She stood by her husband and wonderful amazing knight in shining armor and she laughed out loud with him as she looked at her house with the drawings on the wall and the stained carpets and the messed up hair on her kids. It wasn’t the picture she had in her mind as an 18 year old innocent maiden before she had met seriously mean dragons. It was better! She was different, she had learned and she knew where she was meant to go from here.
I would like to say “and they lived Happily ever after…” but the truth is, they are still going forward fighting the dragons that never seem to go completely away. It seems each day brings a new kind of dragon. The dark force continually sends out other Dragons the 2 of them have to learn to fight together. And the maiden learned that many Princes she once thought she could have been with to protect her with their wealth had crumbled under the crushing blows of a variety of dragons she and her knight were fighting together. She was so happy to be with her handsome, strong and determined knight. That although the heavens had not blessed them with gold and precious gems, her knight had been given other gifts of strength needed for a true warrior. And she was glad to by his side – the love of her life…