“I A Princess!”

The princess theme has been a massive marketing success. Princess dolls, and posters, and playthings abound. The fascination of today’s little girls with Princesses has definitely hit my family. I have five little princesses of my own: Eliza, Madeline, Samantha, Gracie and Esther.

Eliza, now age ten is the Senor Princess. She was the first among my granddaughters to own a Cinderella blue gown complete with crown and slippers. I asked her tonight if she has a favorite Princess. “Well Grandma, I do, and you can probably guess which one. She looks like me, except she doesn’t have any freckles, and she likes to do what I like to do,” replied my little bookworm. “Belle!” I guessed, and I was right.

“Grandma, which is your favorite Princess?” asked five-year-old Sammy as I entered her house last week. Then she gave me a hand full of little princess action figures representing each of my choices. “You can only pick one, Grandma!”

Maddie’s mother overheard a conversation between her five year old and a neighbor girl the other day that went something like this:
“Let’s play modeling,” suggested the friend.
“What’s that?” questioned five-year-old Madeline.
“Well, you walk out and walk down a little way and turn around and walk back.”
“That sounds boring,” responded Maddie. “Let’s play Royalty!”

Gracie, our little redheaded two-year old is really into the princess thing already. The other night she was dressed in her pajamas and ready for bed but fought tooth and nail against being put in her crib for the night. Her issue? Well these were her words:

“I Princess!!!” she cried out.

She was full of resolve and would not budge until her mother got a princess dress out of the box of dress-ups and put it over her pajamas.

Finally last and littlest of all, Esther recently left the realms above to join her Princess Cousins. Esther has no present interest in Princessie things, but there is no name more regal in all of scripture than Esther. She reminds us that the great plan of the King is for all girls to become Queens.

I must have been about eight or nine the first time I saw the Shirley Temple version of “The Little Princess.” I’ll never forget her words to the crotchety, bitter woman Miss. Muenchen, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that all girls are princesses?”

“That’s right!” I remember thinking. Somehow, even then, I knew it was true.

There are so many grown up Princesses among us who are in grave trouble today. We seem to have lost sight of our true identity. We’ve decided that because we aren’t perfect we probably aren’t on the list of “favorite” Princesses. We’ve decided to play “model” even though it’s boring, instead of practicing our own, “Royalty.” And we have treated ourselves and allowed others to treat us as less than daughters of The King. We pick and choose when to wear our crown and our sparkly shoes and poofy dress and when to dress down because all that Princess stuff gets in the way.

I wonder if there’s a bit of Eternal understanding being awakened in our little girls. I want to stand up and cheer for all of them. I want to tell Sammy that there is no Princess in God’s Kingdom more important or more valuable to The King, Jesus Christ, than her. I want to tell Gracie, “You are indeed a little Princess. You can and should dress like one inside and out, all day, every day. Don’t allow any one to treat you like any thing less, and don’t ever treat yourself as anything but!” I want to tell Madeline that we are not here to just “play Royalty” but to practice and develop our very authentic “Royalty.” And finally I want to tell Eliza who has outgrown the Princess clothes in the dress up box and Esther who hasn’t grown into them yet, that even in your blue jeans or bundled in a blanket in your mother’s arms you are still Princesses.

“I A Princess!”

“That’s Right Little Girls, And Don’t You Ever Forget It”

By Nannette W.
Posted Saturday, April 11, 2009

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