1) marriage and waiting

from here...
"I'd still like a white dress to hang in my closet someday - preferably someday soon. But now as I wait, I'm careful not merely to mark time, so preoccupied with what's next that I miss out on what's now. I'm striving to wait well. And part of waiting well, I've learned, is being open to God's lessons about redemption, trust, compassion, and his higher purposes along the way.

Until I see God face-to-face, I'll always wait for something. Or rather, Someone. And as I long for earthly things, I'll allow them to point me to the deepest longing in my soul. He's the One I await."

2) the power of beauty

from here...
"It's not so much about the boy - at 16, boys are pretty much interchangeable - but about the idea of the boy, the prince who'll come rescue the girl from a life of pain or, even more so, of desperate banality.

It's about the dream of beauty.

I think God created women to long for beauty. It evokes a sense of order and rightness. It inspires wonder and worship. The beauty of creation, the beauty of a young woman trading her basketball shorts for a pink satin gown reflects her Creator.

Watching it all made me fall a little more in love with Jesus.

The world can be so dark and ugly. Young women rarely escape scars or damage from its cruelty. The culture is crass and crude, and young women often settle for far less than they're worth.

One girl who came to Cinderella's Closet wrote a thank you note: "Every girl should feel like a princess."

Even more, every girl should feel cherished by a Prince whose powerful love makes her beautiful."


3) interesting quote

Perhaps her faults and follies, the unhappiness she
had suffered, were not entirely vain if she could
follow the path that she now dimly discerned before
her . . . the path that led to peace.

W. Somerset Maugham
The Painted Veil

Lift not the painted veil which those who live

Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,

And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread,--behind, lurk Fear

And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave

Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it--he sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love,

But found them not, alas! nor was there aught

The world contains, the which he could approve.

Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot

Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove

For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

"Lift not the painted veil which those who live"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley