My name is lacee lorayne | 25 years young | love the mountains, collecting old bibles/books, and the sunlight on my face | learning to reflect my Lord and Savior and best friend Jesus Christ in everything I do | "Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day." -Psalms 25:4,5
Early this morning, I read the incendiary reports about Planned Parenthood's unfortunate tweet, expressing their hope that Disney Corporation might transform itself into an abortion advocate, by creating a post-abortive Disney princess. Planned Parenthood Keystone, the Pennsylvania branch of the abortion giant, tweeted: "We need a Disney princess who's had an abortion. We
I woke up this morning in the shadows of Cinderella Castle, to a phone call from a friend who knows my story well. She informed me of a recent tweet by Planned Parenthood regarding the need for a Disney Princess who’s had an abortion.
“We need a disney princess who’s had an abortion / We need a disney princess who’s pro-choice / We need a disney princess who’s an undocumented immigrant / We need a disney princess who’s actually a union worker / We need a disney princess who’s trans”.
In 1981, I worked as a Singer/Dancer at Disney World, where my voice was used in recordings as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty for special events and ongoing shows. I performed, on average, five shows a day in front of Cinderella’s castle, singing and dancing to “Some Day my Prince Will Come” and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” At the age of 18, I became pregnant and had an abortion to keep my job as a singing princess. There was no pressure from the company or management to abort my baby. I didn’t tell them. But I made a decision on my own that I quickly lived to regret.
In the immediate days following my abortion, I struggled deeply. I continued to sing songs in front of the castle about dreams coming true, but eventually had to quit my dream job due to my inability to reconcile my decision within myself. I wanted to die.
Eventually, I found healing. It was an arduous struggle to navigate my personal grief. But by the grace of God, I am living an amazing life.
I married a great guy (my prince). A few years later I gave birth to a beautiful daughter. I conceived my son on the first trip back to Disney World following my departure. I went on to advocate for orphans and adopted five children. I am the mother of one daughter from Guatemala who was born to someone I see as a Guatemalan Princess (14 years old at the time she gave birth to my little girl). She decided NOT to abort her baby. My daughter Matéa’s name means “Gift from God.”
Three of my children watched their mother die from AIDS in Ethiopia. Their Ethiopian Mother Bayoush resembled a gorgeous African Princess. They were left alone in the world, and we were blessed to adopt them.
My son Alec was labeled invalid and almost sent to die in an orphanage known for rampant abuse in Ukraine. We adopted him from the baby home when he was 5. His mother (Princess) Tetyana made a difficult decision in giving birth to her baby and then abandoned him at the hospital at two days old. Her bravery in giving her child life before she died has been a gift to us.
We are a blended family of immigrants and American born children representing Jewish culture, Christian, British Royal heritage, Hispanic, Ukranian, and African. And we all are a Disney family beautifully woven together by God’s grace and living in the shadow of Cinderella’s castle in Orlando.
Planned Parenthood defended their tweet with the following:
“Today, we joined an ongoing Twitter conversation about the kinds of princesses people want to see in an attempt to make a point about the importance of telling stories that challenge stigma and championing stories that too often don’t get told,” said Melissa Reed, Planned Parenthood’s president and CEO. “Upon reflection, we decided that the seriousness of the point we were trying to make was not appropriate for the subject matter or context, and we removed the tweet.”
I am in the process of writing a book about Cinderella, focusing on the incredible strength of Cinderella in overcoming life in the fire and ashes as an orphan herself. She was tortured and enslaved by the ugly stepsisters, who didn’t understand her story and tried to rewrite her destiny by taking away her rightful position standing next to the King. Cinderella defied her stepmother and stepsisters in taking the throne by storming the castle gates adorned in supernatural favor to battle for her happily ever after.
Disney doesn’t need a princess who has had an abortion. For years feminists have been princess bashing because they clearly don’t really grasp the depth of the princess stories that have already been told of overcoming evil, beauty rising out of the ugliness of the world, empowering love that is willing to slay dragons, resurrecting life after evil witch potions threaten to poison and demanding true love in a world that wants to rewrite the happy ending into something less romantic. Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, Merida, Ariel, Mulan all represent strength, power, grace, favor, determination and beauty out of ashes.
Abortion doesn’t empower.
Cinderella, in defying her stepmother and sisters, has been empowering women for thousands of years. Cinderella, the orphan girl, enslaved by the women in the house and her story cannot be improved upon. A slave girl breaking down a door meant to keep her from her destiny as queen (locked by the women assigned to take care of her) speaks volumes to our daughters. Cinderella, poised in her tattered servant clothing walking into the room to place her foot in HER glass slipper before the prince, shows us about grace and dignity. Cinderella claiming her destiny and position as queen, even as the abusive stepsisters try to keep her from it, reminds our daughters that oftentimes beauty, purity, determination and grace through the fire — wins.
My family walks down Main Street USA to gaze upon Cinderella’s castle almost daily. We are strong, happy, peaceful. The princesses in my home represent Africa, Guatemala, America. I brought my children to live here as a reminder that orphans can take a position on a throne inside of a castle and that dreams do come true. The princess stories that exist cannot be improved upon by any of the think-tank sessions inside of Planned Parenthood. It’s time to stop the Princess bashing and understand that iconic fairy tales cannot be improved upon by a politically motivated agenda.
Maybe the reason Planned Parenthood wants to rewrite the princess stories is that stories of evil witches in pursuit of killing off beautiful princesses have already been told. I guess they don’t like their part of the story.
“‘Yet even now,’ says the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments’. Return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness and relenting of evil.”
—
Joel 2:11
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
- Psalm 51:16
May we be a people who weeps over our half-heartedness and mourns over our sin.
“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.”
— George Saunders’s advice to Graduates at Syracuse University, 2013
(via orwell)
“I want to reach for God the way I reach for my phone. When I’m bored, when I’m uncomfortable, when I need answers or entertainment, when I’m lonely and need someone to talk to.”
One overlooked thing that really sets the Lord of the Rings films apart from other franchises is how earnest they are-
Most movies are so afraid of being “cheesy” that whenever they say something like “friendship is the most powerful force in the world” they quickly undercut it with a joke to show We Don’t Really Believe That! ;) Even Disney films nowadays have the characters mock their own movie’s tropes (”if you start singing, I’m gonna throw up!”) It’s like winking at the camera: “See, audience? We know this is ridiculous! We’re in on the joke!”
But Lord of the Rings is just 12.5 hours of friendship and love being the most powerful forces in the world, played straight. Characters have conversations about how much their home and family and friends mean to them, how hope is eternal, how there is so much in the world that’s worth living for…. and the film doesn’t apologize for that. There’s no winking at the audience about How Cheesy and Silly All This Is; it’s just. Completely in earnest.
And when Lord of the Rings does “lean on the fourth wall” to talk about storytelling within the film, it’s never to make jokes about How Ridiculous These Storytelling Tropes are (the way most films do)…. but instead to talk about how valuable these stories can be. Like Sam’s Speech at the end of the Two Towers: the greatest stories are ones that give you something to believe in, give you hope, that help you see there are things in a bleak violent world that are worth living for
I laugh harder with you. I feel more myself with you. I trust you with me–the real me. When something goes wrong, or right, or I hear a funny joke, or I see something bizarre, you’re the first person I want to talk to about it.
Samantha Young, Before Jamaica Lane (via wordsnquotes)
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