It's a Grimm Tale

Life. It’s crazy sometimes. Super busy. Lots hitting you from many angles. It currently is, but God's giving me joy... especially in serving others. Crazy how knowing it's not "all about me" can produce such joy ;)

Anyway... a couple of weeks ago during storytime, I was making my preschool boys happy with a “truck” themed week. I was reading “Hansel and Diesel”, a takeoff on “Hansel and Gretel”. Does anyone remember how twisted Grimm Fairy tales are? Or nursery rhymes? You kind of forget… block it from your memory. Do you remember that the witch wants to put Hansel and Gretel in the oven? Do you remember that “Ring Around the Posey” is about the Plague, “London Bridges” is about the big fire in London and in “Jack and Jill”, Jack fell down and broke his crown… cracked his skull, poor Jack! Yet, we remember them as “classics” and block out their more morbid bits… and most of us are quite normal functioning people despite exposure to them!

Well, I was reminded of the grimness of Grimm tales after reading “Hansel and Diesel”, but had two thoughts. First, kids have a strange curiosity for scary. A bunch of the kids had a lot of questions… especially when I forgot to skip the whole “wicked winch and the metal shredder” part! *yikes* They were kind of scared, yet they wanted to edge up to that fear and were curious. Second, as scary as those stories are, they have a moral (a slightly twisted moral, but a moral nonetheless). If Hansel and Gretel had remained home and safe and not gone anywhere without Mom and Dad, they wouldn’t have had to face the witch on their own.

So why am I thinking of this so much? Over-analyzing (as I often do) for a deeper meaning? Life is full of these situations. Kind of scary or hard. We have a strange curiosity toward them. We’re scared. Yet, I think there’s something deep down in us that wants to step up and stand up. And it might be hard, but if we do stand tall, we learn a valuable lesson. One thing God has taught me and reminded me time and again is that happiness is more situational… depends on all the people and events surrounding us. And let’s face it, life can be crazy at times! But joy from Him is something I can claim no matter whether I’m in the mist of something joyful or deep down in something hard.

And this musing from my mind is courtesy of thinking too long on fairy tales and nursery rhymes ;) I'm also reading a very thought-provoking book by Donald Miller called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. More on this to come, because it ties in and it definitely makes me think... and it's making me act. But that's the tease for now...