I’ve Seen “Beauty And The Beast” More Than A Dozen Times; Here’s What I Learned. (Archive Post)

How Did This Even Start?

Short answer? I finally met FEAR. Never in my life have I been afraid for a human besides my father and then I met this one person. For the first time, I was genuinely afraid of and for someone. It’s true that he wasn’t the only scary part of life at the time but he was definitely a major one and suffice it to say, I was unnerved and unravelled by it all. See, I’d like to think that my parents raised me to be a pretty bold and brave person, this was made substantially easier because they themselves were both fiercely fearless people. I don’t recall ever seeing either of them afraid of anything or anyone, they both seemed unshakable to me because they knew and constantly signalled to me that they were fully aware of their own limitations and yet confidently reliant upon someone much much bigger and more powerful than they were and since they actually lived like it, I believed them and this was my normal. As it is with most things in parenting, it wasn’t anything they had said in particular that communicated this to me, but just from the very natural process of learning through observation which every child constantly does of their parents I understood this truth about them. The teaching season for parents never ends does it?, not even in death because these things tend to linger, as they should. My parents were many things but I don’t believe that “fearful” was one of them.

While they were alive I basically went out into the world living as they had modelled for me but my fearlessness had a critical flaw that I hadn’t noticed until they died, It was based on them when it should have been based on God. No matter who your parents are, let me relieve you now of the trouble that comes with discovering for yourself that they are not GOD. The whole time I thought I was leaning on God but I wasn’t, not fully. I was very shocked to discover this in their absence. Being traumatised by the sudden deaths of people you love is understandable, and so the frightful state I found myself in for the first time was probably to be expected. Especially because I hadn’t even considered for a second a scenario where I would have to do life without them, let alone at 25 years old. One of the very tenets of PTSD is residual fear, so it’s no wonder that this became my new state of mind a little over a year after entering into orphanhood. The very first time this became crystal clear to me, was after I met a certain someone, a very important certain someone. Don’t expect a name, it won’t be given, but this person became so important to me so quickly and prematurely that a multi-layered gripping fear of said person and of the impact of their actions on me had caught hold of my heart before I could even guard against it.

The scripture below summarises why this had occurred, we will explore it in detail later however, notice that It ties boldness to righteousness and contrasts that state of being with the promised experience of the wicked. “Perfect love casts out fear” and “there is no fear in love” are other famous scriptures that come to mind to buttress the point. Now, was I wicked against people? nope, but was I wicked against God? YES! and that is a verifiably worse position to be in, a child of God living wickedly in the eyes of her father is exponentially worse. Throughout scripture, God’s children are instructed by Him to “fear not“, I have since learned first-hand that THIS godly fearlessness that is cultivated and lived out strictly by the power of God, is impossible for the compromised Christian to have, and as I’ve just described, I was definitely compromised. I was emotionally wounded through trauma and spiritually compromised through sin. Pray that you never have to learn the hard way that this is always a very simple yet potent recipe for catastrophe.

“The wicked flee when no man pursues them, but the [uncompromisingly] righteous are bold as a lion”.

PROVERBS 28:1 – THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE, CLASSIC EDITION.

The Aftershocks Of Trauma.

For me, the inevitable aftershocks of trauma came in waves. It felt like a constant, sad and daunting never-ending cycle of healing and discovering new wounds that needed healing. I deeply underestimated the effects of what had happened to me and greatly overestimated my own strength, especially without God. it is laughable now but I was actually attempting to heal myself without the help of my creator, that was extremely foolish. You see, my parents met and started a serious relationship quite young, by the time they were in their mid-twenties marriage was already agreed upon and established as inevitable for them, and they tied the knot not long after. It was definitely beneficial to them that their love happened in an era when Christians were, well, Christian.

Unfortunately, I had erroneously not factored a lot of the generational peculiarities of their situation into forming my own expectations of how love and life would play out for me. Factors like the fact that they were both Holy Spirit-filled Christian kids living like Christians when they met and remained so until their deaths. Essentially, they were your typical “campus bible nerds” while I, on the other hand, in spite of my upbringing in such a household went into the world pretending not to be Christian, at least not as Christian as I really was. I could have easily passed as the undisputed captain of “The Association of Lukewarm Children of God” in nearly every environment I found myself, including Church. I got SO proficient at this tedious and exhausting craft of “hiding one’s light” that I gradually became nearly indistinguishable from the typical kids from Neo-pagan homes in most of my schools. I attended quite a few because we moved around fairly frequently but with all of my self-reinventions and the virtual contortion that it takes to fit in in new school environments, the only constant theme in all of the different versions of honey was that I had effectively hidden my walk with GOD because I so wanted to “fit in” and be considered “cool”. I don’t blame myself too much these days though because very few teenagers or young adults have the guts to not mind being labelled the weird church kid by their peers and that’s just a fact of life.

Now, understand that as a Holy Spirit-filled, with evidence of speaking in tongues, daughter of intensely Christ-like parents, so this level of self (and christ) denial this was no easy feat, not by a long shot. I say lukewarm because these renditions of myself I created and presented to the world became such Frankenstein, freakish-looking combinations of good and bad, light and dark. I was never too bad to become called a verified member of the “bad girls club” but I also was never good enough to be mistaken as a child of God. Ce bon? I say all this part to show that if I had only stayed true to my roots and lived for God as I should’ve and was raised to do, no matter where I was, by the time I met this individual, I would have been ready and complete with decades of preparedness under my belt to handle the storm that was him.

Now, Cue “The Beast”.

I’ve deliberately chosen this photo above because I think it accurately depicts the exact angle that started it all. The back. Don’t as me how or when it started, it just did. I blinked and it had happened, All I can say is that somewhere in the midst of that chaos I saw his heart, I had no idea who this person was and still I had seen his heart. I saw his facade too but I had already seen his heart and it was done. So in the end, at the worst, I was simply confused. Have you ever met a person that completely disrupts your very perception and presuppositions of life before? and it’s not anything they’ve done or said, its just who they are that’s done it? and you don’t even know how you know but you know? well, he was that someone for me.

Remember, I was fresh on the orphan train and struggling to just stay afloat now imagine running into yet another life-altering event while your head is still spinning from the last, so soon after and without any warning, heads up or the proper grounding in my foundation that should have been the word of God exemplified in the testimony of my parents. Long story short, one day after all this started and was already on the way “someone came and said something” and that’s all it took for me to hit rock bottom. The problem wasn’t that he was who he was it was that not only was I not who I should have been, I wasn’t even who I had been pretending to be. I was worse than that, I was no one.

Have you ever been “no one” before? do you understand how frightful it is to have no idea who you are? I don’t wish it on anyone. Being so lost that you don’t have an identity, if you had asked me to introduce yourself then I’d have had no words, if I did, they would have been unconsciously said and if by any chance, they had been consciously said, I definitely would have forgotten them the minute I left your presence because that’s how broken I had become. remember, all of my previous Frankenstein identities were built on parents who were now dead and buried. This is why I am a very strong advocate for everyone building their identities on something and someone as solid and immovable as God so that you don’t find yourself completely wrecked as I did. it’s not an understatement to say that I was grossly unprepared and as I would soon learn, these words of the Israelite king Solomon, are true. “Young women of Jerusalem, swear to me that you will not awaken love or arouse love before its proper time!“. Read about that season of my life when I “messed around and got benched” in this blog post here.

Why 14 Times Though, Honey?!

Has God ever led you to pay attention to something as seemingly insignificant as watching a movie before? This was one of the first times this had happened to me. I’ve often wondered why the beauty and the beast though, as a child I wasn’t particularly keen on any Disney Princesses, in fact, apart from The Lion King, I don’t even remember watching any until my early teens so when God brought the movie edition to my attention at this time it wasn’t because I was a huge fan. I have since watched many of them including this one, while I love animations very much I simply have never truly “seen myself” in any particular character in the way that I hear some people talk about identifying with movie storylines and characters. I don’t have a favourite Disney princess although I guess I somewhat “identify” with the imaginary princesses who didn’t “come from money” like Cinderella and Beauty because I have a similar background. Things like a “Nobleman” father who strangely wasn’t wealthy, and his love for me, so in some sense, I did draw parallels as I watched these stories but never to an extent that made me believe in fairytales or something is what I’m saying. True, I didn’t grow up in a wealthy household but I’ve never felt inadequate or less than because I had always had love and everything I needed including more often than not, the things I wanted too. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean I didn’t have dreams or aspirations for my future it just means that I was also content with who I was and where I was. Those two things can simultaneously be true, being grateful for and enjoying your present while you dream look and work towards your future. It’s how I was raised to live, were there times when it was hard to be thankful, yes but in time I have learned the balance of joyful contentment and confident hope in God’s ability to lift me. 

I believe that in hindsight the movie was just a tool used to help me feel less alone and strange. It was the first time I was learning life lessons in such detail from a movie and on some level, perhaps that’s why I kept returning to watch it ever so often. Honestly, I’m taught something new each time I see it, I guess it’s just one of those works that have different effects for each person. Life lessons from movies aren’t so farfetched though, evaluate and you’ll see that some of your ideas and perceptions about life are influenced, inspired and reinforced through the media you consume so I guess I really shouldn’t be too surprised. What is surprising though is the sheer volume and repeat consumption of this particular piece of content. I should stop rambling and get to them lessons.

So, What Reeeeally Triggered It?

The Bible says to “…guard your heart, for out of it, flows the issues of life” and I wasn’t doing that. As I already said, it really just was that someone I trusted said something that was repulsive, slanderous and disappointing and because I wasn’t sound enough to peep game or wise enough to “test every spirit”, it caused me to basically spiral. It truly was a stray breaking a camel’s back type of situation, may sound ridiculous but it’s also true. You know how it’s described in King David’s story in the Bible that a spirit of heaviness came upon Saul, this felt like that. ever since that day a heavy heart befell me. This was one of the darkest points in that season for me. I remember spending days lying down in one position physically unable to peel myself off that position for hours and days every weekend. I was getting weaker and I could tell, all I could do and had the will to do was lay there and watch this movie on repeat, pausing and rewinding and pausing and rewinding almost on a scene-by-scene basis. It was bizarre but it was helping, I don’t know why but it was. I needed something, anything to help me get out from where I had sunk to.

You might understand why in a bit when I explain the lessons but I want to take this chance to warn you, never ever take to heart the stinging words against you or the one you love from persons who haven’t shown themselves to love you. Better yet ask The Holy Spirit, SPECIFICALLY if certain persons are safe for your life. Do NOT misconstrue close proximity to love or basic care or affection. Be unapologetic about staying fiercely protective of your heart and “love life”. More often than not, the persons closest to you have the most ability to damage your heart. You never want to leave your life exposed to just anyone and everyone to waltz in and peace into, that’s very very dangerous.

I read (or heard) somewhere that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions“, even the most well-meaning person can be wrong for you. While gossip and slander cannot have good intentions, information that seems “benign” can be weaponised against your heart by your enemy the devil. People can say many damaging things into your life under the guise of love so be very careful. If giving an unsafe person access to speak to your ear isn’t avoidable, then learn to quickly take everything to God in prayer while watching for fruits and proof before random words into your life and always remember to wait and allow Him to filter all “truths” through the light of his word, so that your heart is never damaged. God takes this so seriously that He allowed it to be revealed to us that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” So in the same breath, also be careful what you say to people because words have power, trust no one fully but God, His words are healing, lean on them. Run everything you hear through the prism of His truth.

I can’t explain it, but I know that plain words could not have had that much effect on me, it felt deeper than that all because I was already emotionally and spiritually weak and compromised for the reasons I expounded on in the paragraphs above. In a weak place, you need words that strengthen, you need other christ-like people to speak life into you. It takes wisdom and love for the ones around you to know what you need in that low place. Even if the “information” you’re being fed is true is it what needs to be said? is the timing right? what about the motives of the speaker? and has God told you to say that or has the devil? We will all give accounts for every idle word we speak so let us all take care.

It’s taken me all these years to realize and accept that the world’s culture is as it has always been, inherently and irrevocably pagan and that’s why God has commanded his children is not to holla and yell and reeee and be offended and organize protests or to be unruly to your governments or be a pseudo-revolutionary or even and activist. Nope, no matter what system you find yourself under, governmental or otherwise in (this current rendition of the world), His instructions are simple and universal to all of us  “do not conform to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”. His solution isn’t external instead it directs you to focus on the internal, the things within the bound of your own control and agency. I didn’t always understand this but sometime after reading the bible a second time I have come to.

Also, understanding that the world is a system of systems and that culture is only a reflection of the state of the hearts of the men within those systems has helped me greatly. It is foolish to outsource the task of protecting your spirit by expecting people to always be good for you in such a fallen world, that’s why God commits the responsibility of guarding one’s heart solely to the individual. No one can or should do it for you. Had I done it for myself as I should’ve, those damming words spoken wouldn’t have caused such damage even if they did hurt. Living in sin is like taking a chance in a dangerous world with a weakened immune system, I won’t dare it ever again. To my former self, I will say, chin up, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might and never let yourself sink to that place again, definitely not because someone couldn’t control their tongue. If this part reads quite cryptic it’s because it’s supposed to, I’m confident that anyone else who’s supposed to glean something from this paragraph, will. Moving on.

Who Even IS “The Beast”?

Well, First I want to point out that while the movie called him a Prince, he was actually a King because both his parents were deceased and he was head of his Castle. Secondly, To borrow the Bridgerton lingo, simply put, the beast is “a rake” in a season of entrapment. As the famous story goes, the once handsome Prince got himself trapped in a curse placed over him by a witch whom he had offended by his horrid character. She levied some equally horrid consequences on him like losing his handsome facade and trading it in for a gruesome-looking, beastly figure and being forgotten by the world outside his Castle while a countdown was set using the petals of an enchanted rose. If he was unable to find the maiden who would love him despite his newly acquired flaws before the last petal of the single rose had fallen, he and his household would be damned and thereby trapped in those ugly and inanimate states she had placed them in forever.

I will state at this point, that yes this blog contains pieces of a story, my story but the movie and its characters were never highlighted to me as my own exact story. As I said, it’s just a tool that was chosen to be used by God to educate me on certain “Archetypes“, some of which had similarities to situations I had experienced and was struggling to comprehend. The labels “Beast” “Beauty” and “Gaston” are some of those archetypes. Overall. the story in its entirety was used by Him to teach me lessons about man’s heart and the progress that is possible if anyone would yield to His processes because, under such conditions, change and even a renewal are possible. Now, without further ado,

HERE ARE MY LESSONS FROM THE CHARACTER ARCHETYPE OF “THE BEAST“.

• Genuine acts of love should always impress you: You can tell a lot by the things a person finds impressive. The beast once stated that watching Beauty trade her freedom for her father’s had impressed him. I believe that being kind and loving in a cruel world is not a way of life for the weak-hearted, only the truly brave and strong can venture to live like that because it requires humility and a willingness to sometimes appear to be “taking the L”, especially in the eyes of people. If it were easy, everyone would be following Jesus’s example but most people don’t because pride and ego won’t allow it. Do you really believe the Son of God couldn’t come down off that cross? that’s why scripture bothered to tell you that “no one took his life from him but he laid it down wilfully in obedience to his Father“. He did it for our sakes out of love. Even though those he was dying for were his killers. THAT is true strength and courage and love. I think you’ll find that it’s much easier to be mean and wicked than to choose to live in love in this world, living wickedly is the easy route (the lazy route). It doesn’t take a genius or even talent to be mean and this has been true ever since “the fall of man“. Basically ever since, wickedness is now the default heart posture of the human condition especially for those without God. Since LOVE is such a rare trait for people to possess these days in this ever-darkening world, I believe it should be recognised and celebrated wherever it is observed. it actually takes effort and a strong will to follow God’s command of love in a system that seems so hell-bent on reproducing monsters via a sick “cycle of hurt” being spread like a virus. Apparently the rather illogical logic is “Hurt people hurt people”. This has become the moral crutch that perpetuates folly keeping people pound and stuck in a loveless loop. Someone hurts you so you insist that it gives you the absolution for hurting me and I’m supposed to feel equally justified in hurting the next someone and the cycle continues. Someone’s got to “man up” and break the cycle but how many people do? You are not “justified” in dealing wickedly with people just because others did it to you, (at least not in God’s eyes). So kudos to the temporary beast for noticing her sacrifice enough to be impressed by it, most people are so jaded they cant even recognise love anymore let alone celebrate it. It made me think perhaps his heart really was always warm all along and that he was simply acting out His father’s influence and lectures in cruelty because it became a habit. To have done it so proficiently though that it would take a witch of all people to confront him, he must have really glazed over that Heart with a veneer of hardness so much that it required such a painful and isolating condition, like those necessitated by the curse to force him to reconnect with his true heart. it basically took that curse to change his trajectory.
• Sometimes people are cruel and yell because they are hurt; it’s just a reflex pain reaction or a trauma response so try not to take it too personally. Maybe try to accept it as your own lesson for developing the fruit of patience in you.
• He was very loved by those who knew him the best; That always counts for something. 
• He was once worse than the Gaston Archetype; The only difference was that he changed. The growth and evolution of your soul and spirit are possible and also entirely your responsibility. It’s how God has designed it to be and there’s no way around it. Hence the genius idea of individual judgment. You do know that the word “repent” the Bible keeps saying to you doesn’t mean to apologize and confess your sins right? it literally means to change your mind and turn. Repenting means to turn from the state you’re in and go the other way. I’m not sure it’s possible to be repented and your life remains unchanged. The very work of The Holy Spirit in any life IS to transform it.
• His Archetype’s Character Growth Curve is Inspiring; Considering the sheer height of his position on the social ladder, His “glow up” journey from cruel and obnoxious prince to “the beast” at rock bottom, all the way up to the king with a healed heart was pretty epic which is quite rare for a Disney prince. If the Bible states that the wealthy will find it hard (not impossible) to enter the Kingdom of God, and it does, then young, handsome, wealthy, male and French heathen is probably the worst card in the deck to pull, isn’t it? Yikes. How ever shall thee escape hell? Well, if I believed in luck, I would wish such a one some but since I don’t, my advice is to find God quickly and stick to him forever even if … “it costs you an arm or an eye, it’s better to enter maimed than not at all” (His words not mine). Also, it might help to recognize that Jesus was, is and always will be infinitely wealthier than all that has ever been considered wealth on earth COMBINED. He literally owns the earth, As In, If you looked at His real estate portfolio, it includes THE TITLE DEED OF EARTH! If He appeared to be poor to you in the stories you’ve read about him from the last time he was here, you are gravely mistaken. I do hope you understand that. For your sake, I hope you do. Don’t believe me? 2 Corinthians 9:8 “For you are becoming progressively acquainted with and recognizing more strongly and clearly the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (His kindness, His gracious generosity, His undeserved favour and spiritual blessing), [in] that though He was [so very] rich, yet for your sakes, He became [so very] poor, in order that by His poverty you might become enriched (abundantly supplied)“.) And we haven’t even mentioned his Heavenly Net Worth yet. Soooo maybe you should take a long pause before you write him off and conclude that He doesn’t understand the “peculiarities” of your “difficult predicament” of wealthy living. It might be wiser to talk to Him daily about the tips you need to make it into Heaven, your wealth notwithstanding. Just saying. Very well then, Godspeed.

• A Parent’s influence should never be underestimated; Children learn to love or be cruel from their parents. His house staff even vouched for his sweetness and kind-heartedness as a boy under the influence of his mother, but under the control of his twisted and loveless father, he changed. He became what his father made him to be. It matters who nurtures you.  
• Whatever falls upon you will affect your entire Household; Yep, the good and the bad, sometimes even to your third and fourth generation. So if you think your life just affect, you especially as a man, think again.
• The Spiritual controls the Physical; It was quite fascinating at first when I observed that the part of the curse that stipulated that all the people who lived in the village outside of his cursed castle forgot about him and it didn’t change until he had passed the test and it was lifted. It was surreal to watch a whole village “come to” when the curse was lifted and all remembering their loved ones. Careful now.
• It matters why we do things, especially to God; He finally caught the right motives and learnt to love by letting Beauty go to rescue her father from the ignorant villagers without the guarantee that she would return to him. The beast evolved from trying to use her to change before the time runs out, to sacrificing his last chance to change back. He sacrificed himself for her need even though he had hoped she would accept to spend her life with him in the castle. That’s where the true heart transformation began and I’d argue that THAT IS the internal change that was necessary to trigger the outward change later on. Step on was inner change. A new heart posture.
• Find you a good Team and build it on a foundation of love; As an employer, it’s a blessing to have people who will care for you as much as they do themselves and their own families. That is the best-case scenario. Don’t expect workers to love you more than they love themselves. it’s foolish, unnatural and unbiblical. it’s “love thy neighbour AS thyself”, not above yourself.
• A good and right woman can heal everything; The entrance of the right woman can transform and liberate your household but In the same vein, the evil and wrong woman can decimate it all and you with it. That is not a feminist statement, that’s a true one. It depends on your definition of healing though, so may I suggest that you adopt God’s definition specifically? Just saying, I wouldn’t gamble with something so vital or leave it to chance, that’s how you get into trouble. 
• As King of your Household, it is your responsibility to require and make your people love, honour and help your Woman and your Union;  You can’t cower away from it, the price of not doing so is too costly. Them all being under the course with him made them naturally postured to receive and help her to help him get delivered but what If they weren’t cursed as well? they could have been inclined to fight her. At the risk of turning this into a full-on Disney sermon, I noticed the same pattern in the story of Cinderella, (the movie). The people around you are not naturally predisposed to honour your union, that signal will have to come from you directly. You’ll have to be wise about it so as to lovingly enforce this acceptance and support and might even have to be willing to let go of people who position themselves to fight your woman and your union. Scripture supports this, in the hierarchy of God for your life, it goes HIM, your spouse, your household, then everybody else. Accept it, enforce it and defend it.
• The Beast ultimately evolves into The Prince (King); The beast is in transition and has no choice but to become a Prince again. It’s a life of or death situation for him.

If all these lessons from the beast alone seem like a lot, it’s because it is. As I said, 14 times guys and counting, that’s a lot of times to be taught by something. Anyway, we really must assess this next Archetype.

We Should Talk About Gaston.

Ahhhh Gaston, where do we begin? He was a famous soldier with some major character flaws, not the least of which were pride and blatant narcissism. Unfortunately, he never grew out of them and it ultimately led to his death. He died because his marriage proposal to beauty was rejected which led him to try to kill The Beast whom she loved instead of him. He’s will be super quick.

HERE ARE THE LESSONS FROM THIS ARCHETYPE;

• Gaston’s “love” vs The Beast’s love; They look similar at first but there is a difference between Gaston’s and Beast’s love. His was fickle and lacked substance or purpose, an Infatuation and a silly selfish crush at best. This kind will fade because it must. He wanted her for superficial and selfish reasons even though he never bothered to know her. There are many things wrong with the brand of “love” he expressed for Beauty. It takes wisdom to recognise and turn down this kind to accept true love instead.
• “A Gaston” will always keep adoring fans around; His fragile ego cannot survive without it. He needs them to maintain his sense of worth and to harness their approval and admiration. In the non-Disney version, he probably hooks up with all those 3 fangirls. Eww, that is usually the downfall of this kind of man. 
• A narcissist’s weakness is the worship they crave; This makes the narc extremely easy to manipulate. I think Lefou played Gaston like a fiddle. His kind is an empty shell of of person, hollow and lacking true meaning. A medium looking fish in a minuscule pond. 
• A Gaston Archetype is emotionally stunted; This immaturity and a lack of self-control were made apparent in how overly dependent he was on LeFou even to maintain basic sanity. There are men who might even seem strong on the surface but are not because of their emotional over-dependence on others. Their fragile egos and short tempers make them considerably weaker than they present themselves to appear. Whoever controls your joy controls you that’s why I’ll always be a strong advocate for letting God have that one. Let him control and determine your joy because only He can be trusted with such power over you. It should be noted that happiness isn’t joy. Happiness is circumstantial, joy is not.
• This Archetype will always end up envious of “The Beast“; This kind will inadvertently and simultaneously refuse to commit to any process that forces them to change, grow or repent and hate those who accept to do this very difficult job of personal transformation into a king with a healed heart. One thing is for sure, If “The Beast on his way to being king” has God on his side, the attacks of any and all “Gastons” are destined to fail, sometimes ending in their death. Saul in the Bible reminds me of this Archetype. I think future “Kings” and “Gastons” should not be friends, even if they are in your army. They WILL try to kill you, it’s only a matter of time because you represent everything they’ll never be or even dare to try and since he lacks the moral grounding, spiritual strength or emotional maturity required to self-regulate, his envy and jealousy WILL drive him to incite people against you and/or try to take you out himself. His deep-seated insecurity and juvenile temper also make him unstable in all his ways. If you allow this spirit around you under the guise of friendship, it will oscillate so much between love and hate, hot and cold that you’ll get whiplash just trying to keep up with the instability of his heart. Now when the younger half-brother of God in the flesh, (who grew up in the same house with Yeshua and everything) tells you anything, you might want to take it seriously. He says “For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways”(James. 1:8). Note that this archetype doesn’t even have to be your friend to harbour such feelings towards you. Small-minded men are envious of many and insecure about much because they refuse to pursue God to find his purposes for their own lives. So, naturally, you and yours become obsessions and targets for this sad individual to covet and attack. Rather than build he’s, he’ll attack yours. Remember that It took God to deliver David from his own “Gaston-type-figure”, so as a child of God, I’m guessing it will take God for your own deliverance too. Y’all be careful now.

Final Lessons From Belle & Her Story.

I won’t discuss the lessons from this Archetype in as much detail because there are so many. I’ll list as much as possible and wrap up this piece now. Who knows, one day I might fully comprehend the lessons from my experience with this movie and clearly see its full application in my life. However, until then how about a commitment right now to write that “progress report” on the 10th anniversary of this blog post? Deal? Great.

HERE THEY ARE;

• Beauty was a nerd; I already feel less strange.
• Belle heals the beast by honestly reflecting his nature to him; She confronted the beast with himself when she needed to and was softer when required, She wasn’t afraid to argue with him and publicly so. I learned that healthy conflict is good for true growth, development and understanding to occur in love and that it shouldn’t be avoided or cowered away from when it’s needed because that just breeds faking and pretending and walking on eggshells around each other instead of cultivating closeness. It’s good to always speak the truth in love and to learn how to reconcile lovingly and quickly too. Even the Bible says that there is such a thing as ” a righteous anger”. It didn’t say we shouldn’t be angry, it says not to sin when we are and to handle it in wisdom with self-control.
• It is VERY possible for love to happen quickly. Don’t know how but I kind of forgot about this truth, No wonder all the fear. Sin is such a blinder.
• Being labelled weird is not so bad; It’s ok to be considered weird by the standards of wherever you live. It was refreshing to watch Belle remained herself even though her society didn’t approve of, respect, appreciate or welcome her as she was. They fought against her nature in the village and she didn’t conform. She stayed deliciously oblivious to people’s disapprovals of her; even though she was aware of their predisposition. I’ve found that pleasing God is infinitely more fulfilling than pleasing people. You should love and honour people of course but The Bible says nothing about following, pleasing or worshiping them so don’t. If doubt it, know that it’s consistent with scripture. 2 Corinthians 6:17 says “So, come out from among [unbelievers], and separate (sever) yourselves from them, says the Lord, and touch not [any] unclean thing; then I will receive you kindly and treat you with favour…” She didn’t fit in in the village and honestly, neither did her father. They were two weird peas in a pod, I love it. I was quite surprised though to learn though that this “misfit princess” is a rather common troupe in the storylines of Disney, I guess it’s just a universally relatable message. It really is OK to be different you know, as long as who you’re being is who God has made and instructed you to be. Who He leads you to be would usually be aligned with His word, so use it as the guideline for your life.
• It’s fairly common for pretty women who are also Intelligent to find themselves quite isolated and without friends; This is yet another strange pattern i noticed about the “Disney babes” as I was writing this piece. Those chics don’t be having friends. Think about it, with the slight exception of Snow White, (although it could be argued that the dwarfs were actually her subjects, not her friends), All their friends are animals! almost all of them, google it and see. They mostly have talking animals as friends, this was such a bizarre thing to learn observe. I was just going to limit it to Beauty and then i check out the other girl’s stories and was very surprised. Even Ariel who’s half animal herself has a younger male full fish and her father’s “chief of staff” who was a Haitian crab as her friends. Beauty didn’t even have an animal friend. Just weird, ANYWAY again i don’t feel so strange anymore, it just is what it is. Whatever God approves for me in the future with relationships will be carefully entered into. No more “random” connections only intentionally initiated, God-pleasing partnerships from here on out. There’s a tremendous price that one pays for carelessness and recklessness in establishing friendships and relationships. I’ve seen the damage that can be done by wrong connections and the blessings that the right folks for your destiny can bring. “Wisdom is profitable to direct”.
• Beauty is both an inward and outward quality; Belle wasn’t superficial or obsessed with looks, not even her own. She started developing feelings for the beast before his outward appearance was changed. It’s especially clear when she didn’t display any visceral repulsion with the beast as she exhibited with Gaston who she had known for years and was the popular heartthrob everyone in town wanted to be and be with.
• Intentional kindness is a necessity for love; I’ve always found cruelty unattractive, but this film increased my resolve and made me more intentional about it.
• A father’s love is as beautiful to watch as it is to have; Beauty’s and her father’s love for each other was very cool to watch. One of my favourite movies “What a girl wants” is a great one to watch if you enjoy seeing that brand of love on screen like me.
• A beautifully strange father will raise a beautifully strange daughter; This one feels like a sermon, It’s almost inevitable because, again, nurture does matter.
• She fell in love with him before he was transformed but not before his heart was changed; The heart is the key, she already saw true love in him. 

• it’s ok to ask and hear the story of your person’s history from the people who love him; They never discussed it but his people openly told her in his presence. it wasn’t gossip, it was information. 
• Politely reject the proposal of a man you don’t want; There’s no need to be mean and it’s wicked to make him linger and draw it out by giving false hope. Just be kind and clear and don’t forget to set and maintain the necessary boundaries so that you can effectively protect that which IS for you.
• It is your responsibility to convince your parents to come around when they’ve gotten a negative impression of your person; Leverage their love and trust for you to make a case for them and then make it clear that while you honour them you are convinced and proceeding with your conviction. If they believe you to be unsure they will persuade you to change your mind. Your resolve determines whether they will yield or not. According to the Bible, as a child, you’re blessed for obeying your parents, as an adult that blessing shifts to you honouring them. Research the difference. 
• She was herself with him and his people; If you invest in developing the “content of your character” just for the sake of it, you’d have no need to pretend to be kind and courteous or loving around people. It would just flow out of you because “out of the abundance of the heart, every mouth will speak” and every action taken will flow. What is inside of you is exactly what will pour out of you in your words and in your deeds. That’s why it is “…by their fruits you will know them“. A person’s fruits are usually a combination of their words and their actions so now i make sure to watch out for both and I think everyone should too. People (even the most 2 faced amongst us) can only fake but so long, all masks slip off eventually. Soon enough the cracks will appear, it’s only a matter of time. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not to “fit in”, I believe that the real you is who is required for every situation you’re put in, especially as a child of God otherwise you wouldn’t be placed there. I’ve regretted every season of life when i pretended not to be who i am for the sake of being accepted by others. I know better than to try that again. Instead, always reach for the great ideals according to God’s standards and His will for you and allow him to deal with the hearts of men towards you as a consequence of your obedience while you focus on obeying and pleasing Him. I liked that Beauty allowed herself to genuinely enjoy their company even though it wasn’t where she had chosen to be. I’ve now learned to be comfortable wherever i am, alone or in the company of others. It wasn’t always like that, glad to no longer be afraid of either.
• Show appreciation for your person’s kindness; Love can grow in such a climate.
• Understand your anger and the anger of the one you love; Not everything is about you so don’t take outbursts of anger too personally. Also, learn their approach to “making up” afterwards and find a system of reconciling that works for you two. Dragging out fights is unwise, a lot of bad seeds of discord can creep in during such prolonged periods of conflict. It takes a lot to get me angry, you know because of the infamous fruits of the The Holy Spirit love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, patience, gentleness, self control and long-suffering, (WOW basically all of them except faithfulness apply to handling anger properly) BUT if you somehow manage to get me angry, understand that you have earned it and You will know that i am because i will speak up. I don’t pretend and i’m very clear about it and yes i forgive but here’s the part i don’t really like about my anger, the fact that i forget about it quickly too. I’m working on getting better at this timing because pushing things into “the vault” instead of waiting until AFTER getting a clear resolution first is unwise. What this “premature vaulting” does is that things don’t get resolved even though they’ve been discussed, this means that if you don’t repent on the issue, the next time you do it there’s a high possibility that I WILL BLOW UP ON YOU because in my mind, 1) i already told you before, 2) it’s usually on common sense issues that you shouldn’t even need to be spoken to about in the first place so the fact that you need to be told more than once is understandably infuriating. I don’t know about you but It’s never fun to be angry at all but even harder when it’s at the one i love but sometimes it must be done for the sake of future bliss. Truth is, If you care, you shouldn’t want to intentionally offend the one you love, if you do then something is wrong with you and you need to fix your heart. Usually when i say nothing about a situation, i’m either not angry or i’ve already prayed and resolved it on my own, i’ve always been this way. I understand that people’s angers are different though, because I watched both of my parent’s angers up close and had a front row seat to their fights. I spent years being the unofficial umpire for some of the fights, (one of my rather humorous responsibilities as first born) so I strongly believe that it is wise to understand other people and know yourself so that you can teach them what you know to help them understand you while learning what they know to better understand them. That’s how genuinely loving and understanding relationships and communities are built over time. As long as you’re alive you will keep learning and unlearning things about yourself and others. For instance, i recently learned that apart from lying to me, one of the surest ways to loose me forever is to try to play mind games on me. I hate this so much that it is a major turnoff both romantically and platonically. I respect people who are themselves and great at it, who don’t make a habit of doing to you things they wouldn’t want done to them just as a matter of principle. I don’t play games on people either, what i do and say IS precisely what i believe to be correct to do and say per time. There’s no secret agenda or elaborate scheme. No plot and no faking. Honestly who even has time for that except the devil?! When you meet me, you’re meeting me. There’s no facades, masks or pretence. The level of vulnerability or access to my heart you receive depends on the spirit that’s at work in you and that’s how it’s supposed to be so that you guard your heart efficiently, other than that necessary guardrail, you are always meeting the real me when we meet and I love the simplicity, clarity, peace and safety this provides me. I’ve never really understood the concepts of “keeping malice”, “the silent treatment” and “emotional cat fishing” in order to get people to conform to what you want them to be. It just seemed unproductive and exhausting to me, God doesn’t want up to employ such tactics and i wasn’t raised to do so anyway so i don’t. I can understand needing space and time to be alone to reflect on situations after a fight but that extreme stuff of punishing by silence and hiding your anger while simultaneously meting out punishment on a person with whom you haven’t even communicated has just been a pet peeve of mine. Especially as a christian? just say what you need to say instead of expecting your mind to be read. I have no problem whatsoever acknowledging wrongs and apologising when i am. It’s prideful to be incapable of doing so, I don’t get why people avoid it so much. If you hate apologising then always do the right things and you wont have to. I had this terrible habit in the past of always assuming that people were just like me or had the same mindset as me which turned out to be a MASSIVE ERROR. I was so shocked to discover that Oh no Honey, most people genuinely lovvve to be and stay angry at you and say nothing about it and rally people against you instead. They would rather contort themselves, lie, pretend and scheme against you than live truthfully with you. I learned that passive aggression and snake-like behaviour IS the norm. At first i was livid that this was actually something people (including christians) literally weaponise in relationships but soon enough, my anger turned into disgust which quickly turned into a codified Life Policy. I decided a while ago to render this particular brand of manipulation ineffective on me forever. While I’ll admit that there was a time when it used to work on me EXTREMELY well, especially “the silent treatment“, but now i’ve just found that burying 3 people i love on a random afternoon has been surprisingly effective at curing me of this particular tendency. Seeing as all 3 of these people will never speak to me again until the day of the church’s rapture, most other ones pale in comparison. I’m not sure how but it seems that God has used this tragedy to make me quite comfortable with silence. Now I only panic when GOD is silent but apart from that, i believe that when people have something to say, they say it and if they are angry and choose to just hold on to a grudge instead, first, that’s their decision, and second, either they or the issue is truly unimportant and perhaps i too am not God’s best for them and am unimportant to their life story, these are all OK with me. Such a person is dangerous anyway because I’ll choose an openly angry but honest and expressive disposition over a pretentiously calm yet secretly venomous heart and tongue any day. Belle was honest with her feelings and spoke them on time and clearly. I was inspired to do more of the same and start to require that people be straight and honest with me as well. I understand that a person’s upbringing could impeded such honesty and transparency and that there is a time and place for tact and silence even if just for the sake of honouring people who should be BUT that is now the exception for me not the rule and it is liberating. I’m grateful that the combination of the self control provides to us by The Holy Spirit and His wisdom is a guide that’s powerful enough for living victoriously everyday. With this combo you will always know the right things to say and do and HOW to say and do them. I’m also convinced that truth delayed is a lie and that most times, to speak truth is also a form of honour especially when spoken in love. Ephesians 4:15. Simply put, Beauty was good and real and we should all strive to be daily. Express yourself with integrity and kindness and free (in some cases mandate) other people around you to do the same without fear of being punished but always manage the subsequent situations that arise as a consequence in Agape.
• Mothers are indispensable. Loved as she was, she still wanted that connection with her mother. That was a pain they both shared. This is yet another trend I found through, For some reason, most Disney gals are separated from their mothers! I was so shocked to learn this, don’t know why it’s so. The only ones I found that had their mothers had rather bland or strained relationships with them like Mulan and Merida. That’s so weird. I found it amazing that Belle’s father said she was as fearless and “weird” as a mother she’d never met. In the end, we’re are all cool (or horrible) combinations of both our parents with some added sprinkles of special. What a comforting yet terrifying thought. I think it is each person’s responsibility to work with God The Holy Spirt to remove the bad and amplify the good amongst our inheritances.
• It is wise to reserve your doubts and vulnerabilities to be shared with those who love you; She asked about the villager’s disapproving comments about her from someone who loved her. Asking her father about people’s judgments and comments was wise and admirable to me because I used to not properly vet the spirits persons operate in, their heart postures toward me or even their possible motives when I chose who to open up to about stuff. Such intimate things should be treated carefully. I’m glad to say that I’m now better at this. If you need a scolding, encouragement, advice or a good venting session, God knows how to get it to you but don’t go opening up to randos and set yourself up to get your heart beat up or your life exposed to the wrong spirits operating through people who already secretly don’t like you. Wisdom is profitable to direct.
• Somehow, there will always be people who like you; Even if a whole community is against you you Will have someone on your side set up by God to help and defend you. Especially as a daughter of God. She was liked by a few in spite of the crowd’s prevailing disposition toward her. There were two other people apart from her father who liked her, The Librarian and The beautiful older woman with the clothing store. See? It’s not all negative.  

The Wrap-Up.

There are two Bible scriptures from Mathew that have changed my mind on the subject of hiding my light as a child of God, maybe they will help you too if you are where I was. Mathew 10:33, “But whoever denies and disowns Me before men, I also will deny and disown him before My Father Who is in heaven”. Mathew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” In the end, I didn’t want to face my big brother and be asked why I spent my life prioritizing everything and everyone else above him and being ashamed. We’ll explore this more in this blog post. I also wanted to obey God’s word to prove my love for him. I will never hide again and I pray that you all find the courage to do the same. You see, I’ve searched and I’ve found that God’s “love language” is obedience.

Alrighty then, that’s enough for now on this one. Until its 10th Anniversary as agreed.

Cheers.