A Fairy Tale Come True

I just finished working on part of Beth Moore’s Daniel bible study looking at Nebuchadnezzar’s 7 year bout with insanity. It all began with him sitting happily in his palace (Dan. 4:4). He was feeling fine. Secure and rich as you could wish. Last night I looked through a magazine, its feature was a look at which stars were rich and which were poor and what they did with their money.

 

Strangely, I felt torn between, “what on earth do they need that for?” and “wow, that looks nice.”

 

I think we all generally feel that mix of emotions when it comes to wealth, at least extreme wealth that gives you a $12,000 purse and a mansion the size of Connecticut for you, yourself, and well...servants I guess.

 

But at the same time, I have this side that wants to be Mother Theresa. There’s something beautiful about suffering because of love.  We all love the stories about the high and mighty sacrificing everything for the poor and the sick.  The martyrs who will give everything because they love God more than earth and all it can give them. Their are so many fabulous stories of sacrifice that fill you with a feeling of significance with which the most beautiful clothes and mansion really cannot compete.

 

Of course, our favorite stories combine the two, don’t they? The poor beggar marries the princess. The sweet, abused little girl finds out that she’s royalty. But it’s not all material goods—the missionary is killed and his blood feed the soil of the hearts of a whole tribe who come to Christ through his sacrifice.

 

Christmas is approaching. Isn’t it really the ultimate fantastic rags to riches story? Here’s a tiny little baby sitting in a barn with mom and dad in a foreign city. I’ve never thought a barn would be to bad until coming to Africa. There are bugs. Spiders, and roaches, lizards, even snakes. And this is inside the nice house.  I can’t say I know all about the barns in Bethlehem, but I know about nice houses in Africa. And they’re not what we’re used to in the U.S. I don’t want this to sound like complaining about accommodations in Africa. But, I’ve found it hard—at least at first—to get used to the thought that while I’m laying down to sleep, their could be a huge, nasty spider taking a quick nap on the pillow with me, or maybe that little bump by my toe isn’t the sheet but a cockroach snuggling up next to me. These concerns gave me no rest at first—I may have been asleep, but my dreams were about the bugs in my bed.

 

Now maybe I’ve gotten used to this kind of thing.

 

But this was Mary’s first little baby. And this was (I’m guessing) her first night in a barn. She didn’t even have a bed. There’s no way I could’ve slept on the floor my first night here. And really, I probably wouldn’t now. I don’t know how she slept in a barn, and took her beautiful baby boy and let him sleep in a food bowl for donkeys and oxen. Have you seen animals eat? They seem to make everything slimy. My dogs’ bowls were always nasty looking. I wouldn’t have put my head in it, let alone a baby. Really, wouldn’t that get a kid taken away from you in America by social services or someone?

 

I’m not saying Mary abused him, just that it was a pretty rough way to start out for Baby Jesus and Mary. And then I suppose life looked up for a while, until everyone decided it was time to kill him. That would be hard. Even if you are God incarnate, having most of your country wishing you were dead would be awful. That’s why he begged God to do anything else, isn’t it?

 

But look what came of it! Now he’s preparing houses for those who have joined his family and sitting at the right hand of God.

 

He’s King now.

 

From baby boy in a food bowl to Israel’s most wanted to King of Heaven and Earth.

 

It’s a pretty good story. And I’ve always thought—wouldn’t it be nice to be in a story like that?

 

Like some fairy tale, where it may be hard right here, right now, right now, but I know that really I’m a princess, and that one day Daddy-King is going to come. Then he'll give me a hug, whisper my real princess name and tell me he’s proud I remembered and waited for him, and that the I did a good job on the work he left for me to do. Then of course he'll bring me to live in the castle with him. He’ll give me a beautiful princess dress, my dirty face will become shining and beautiful and everything will be a perfect at the beautiful castle—complete with all the world’s problems being solved so that you can really enjoy the beauty and the fun.

 

And today, I realized, really realized, that it’s all true. We really are the princesses and princes in the story. And the best part is, we get to know the end of the story now. 

I don’t know how the princesses in the stories could manage without knowing the perfect end is really coming, but we don’t have to wonder. We can know. He’s coming back for us, and then our joy will be complete and we’ll be His princes and princesses.

 

But for now, it takes faith and some elbow grease*. Cinderella didn’t get to the ball by just pining for her prince at a window—she worked hard, until the time was right.  So we should too—but I think it makes it all better knowing that someday, the King's arms will wrap around me, and that King’s mouth will call me, and that this peasant girl will be transformed into the real princess that she was made to be. And then, we really will live happily ever after.

--Jessica

*in the sense of "bearing your cross" and works that show faith, I don't mean elbow grease that makes (or earns) your own salvation of course.