Grown-up Thoughts on The Princess Bride

“Life is pain, highness, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something.”

I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a household that quoted The Princess Bride all the time. It is so woven into our family subculture that we often don’t even realize we’re quoting it. (The same is true for Hook, Willow, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Hunt for the Red October.) It is our shorthand expressions and automatic responses. Say the word inconceivable and my brain responds instantly, in Mandy Patinkin’s voice, “You keep using that word…”

The quote above was one of my father’s favorite training tools. He would quote it and expound on it often. He used it to help arm and armor his five children against the trickery of the world and the way advertisements attempt to capture the unwary and foolish with promises that if you just have this drug, that dress, or these drapes, you’ll be cool and have cool friends.

Give me a moment while I slip on my Christian colored glasses. *clears throat*

“Life is pain…”

I’m thankful for a father who loved me enough to give me sword, shield, and buckler, often through stories. I’m richly blessed! But, like all children, I fell into the temptation to misconstrue my father’s teaching and take it to an extreme he neither intended nor taught, causing me to be imbalanced in my heart and mind. I stopped believing in God’s goodness. (Not completely or utterly, just in small ways.) I took the concept of Life is Pain and changed it to life is only and always pain. I took it and became a functioning nihilist—there is nothing in life but pain and that pain is inflicted by God who is trying to teach you a lesson and you better listen. God became far away, distant, and cold. Life is pain, what did I expect?

This perspective, this functioning nihilism created despair. It created a certain void in my soul and a sense of waiting for the smack, like an abused child waiting for the unpredictable and out-of-control father to lash out. I felt far from a God who told me He was near, cold to a God who told me He was love and loved me, distrustful of a God who was holy, as if holiness was out to get me. What a helluva way for a Christian to live!

What had I missed?

I missed the Fairy Tale!

Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat…giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

J.R.R. Tolkien.

I missed the Fairy Tale!

What happens after Westley is tortured to death (talk about life is pain)? He’s declared only mostly dead and resurrected by Miracle Max, storms the castle, rescues his love, humiliates Prince Humperdinck, makes his escape with his friends, and lives happily ever after. Life is pain? Yes! But it is not only pain! It is also adventure, friendship, beauty, joy, and true love!

What wins in the end? The pain? No!

True love that even death cannot stop wins!

I never noticed this while I was struggling with God’s goodness. I only heard the refrain Life is Pain. I stopped reading at the darkest part and believed that darkness encompassed all of life. I didn’t wait for the light. I didn’t remember the happy ending. I forgot that the next scene was Buttercup and Westley reunited.

But whether I feel it or even see it, God is good. He’s not dependent upon my feelings for his essence. He’s God after all.

For the last several years, God has taken me on a journey through a battlefield to teach me that He is good and that He is good to me specifically. He led me like a warrior captain out of the nihilistic minefield into calm pastures of resting in Him as a Father. I have a wonderful dad. How did I miss that God was even better? How ever that happened, like a good, gentle, kind, protective Father, the Lord led me back to Himself. Like a good warrior, He led me home to the safety of truth.

Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.

Heraclitus

All this culminated in 2024, which was the hardest year of my life. I lost friends who have been woven into my life for decades. I watched brotherhoods crumble that I thought would carry on to the very end. I strongly contemplated asking my husband to leave his ministry. I started having stress and anxiety tension when I walked into the church building. I was ready to quit because of how painful life had become.

And yet…and yet I was also happy. I was so happy. 2024 is drenched in so many tears, but there was also singing, laughing, and dancing.

How could that be?

Because God had reminded me of the truth of fairy tales: the darkness doesn’t win, and isn’t winning, no matter how dark it feels. He had taught me of His goodness, giving me both head and heart knowledge, and so I was not only despairing in the painfulness of life, but also rejoicing at the goodness of God in life.

Life was painful, but life was also love unstoppable by death.

Life was the fairy tale in its entirety.