After the evening was over, after the Magic was gone, after the carriage turned back into a pumpkin and her sparkling gown into rags, Cinderella stood up, dusted herself off, and discovered she was still wearing a single glass slipper. She holds it to her heart and whispers, “Oh thank you. Thank you so much, for everything.”
Cinderella is talking to her fairy godmother, of course. The one who gifted her with the night of a lifetime, a night of being seen for her beauty, a night of deep and dreamy conversation, a night of joy, a night where Cinderella finally becomes beloved. A night so transcendent that were it not for the glass slipper, she might have thought she dreamed it.
But with the slipper in her hand, exquisite, lovely— she knows that her evening was Real. She wasn’t making it up; she wasn’t dreaming. The slipper witnesses to the memory of her belovedness, the memory that will keep her going as she stands up to walk home, alone and barefoot. From now on, when her stepsisters berate her, when she has more work than daylight, when life becomes too much to bear, she will take the slipper out of its hiding place. She’ll look at it, hold it, and remember. Remember that night and the Magic, remember her own worth.
So when she stands up and realizes this token of her belovedness is hers to keep, Cinderella’s heart swells with overwhelming gratitude. Later, the slipper would show its power to save her, but at that moment, Cinderella didn’t know that the man with whom she had been dancing was the Prince; Cinderella didn’t know that the slipper would be her salvation. She was simply grateful, because the gift she clutched in her hand proved that what she’d experienced was True.
Because by the time Cinderella discovered the slipper, the music of the waltz and the glow of the evening had already started to fade. The moment the clock struck midnight, Cinderella had already begun to forget, to convince herself what had happened simply wasn’t true, couldn't be true, but the slipper, shimmering in her hand, is undeniable. The slipper itself, the sign of her secret grace, was more than enough.
The experience of God is too often fleeting, just a glimpse of the Holy, never enough. Like Cinderella’s ball, experiences of the divine are all consuming and so intense as to be dreamlike, a window into a different world, and yet true beyond truth. Like Cinderella’s dress, these experiences bring out our genuine beauty, showing us as we truly are, made by God and beloved beyond all rational measure. And then they fade out again, just as quickly as they came, the strains of music fading, the violas and violins returned to their cases, sheet music gathered up in silence.
When the glow of the divine dims, we flip back into what we perceive, or what we think we should perceive. The carriage is now a pumpkin, the dress, rags. Just moments ago, before the stroke of midnight, we were falling in love, dancing in the arms of a partner, talking happily; now we ache with loneliness. We convince ourselves that we were deluding ourselves, that it was just a dream. We scoff at the hope of our own belovedness, the cruel mockery of our worth. How could we believe that which is so patently untrue?
But when it’s God with whom we dance, there is always a glass slipper. The Divine can’t help but leave a mark on our souls, even just small shift, a softening of the heart, a new insight; in other words, God always leaves a gift for us, to treasure and keep hidden where we can take it out, turn it over, marvel at its beauty, and allow that experience to continue to change us, long after the glow of our magical evening has faded. And to that, there’s only one response: “Oh thank you. Thank you so much, for everything.”