Picture this with me for a moment as I give you a glimpse into my 'traumatic' childhood.
It's 2001. Halloween party for the fourth grade class of Little Birch Elementary school. A class of twenty-two children, dressed up from vampires to cats and everything in between. And who, I might ask, do you think was a princess that year?
Me, of course! Who wouldn't want to be a princess?!
My costume consisted of a spaghetti strapped, black velvet dress, with a white short sleeved t-shirt underneath, and a tiara. Not your typical princess get-up, but I felt like a million bucks in my costume!
Well, you see, I wasn't the only little girl dressed up like a princess.
The most popular girl in my class was also a princess. (Go figure, right?) She comes waltzing up to me in her bright blue princess gown and crown, flaunting her overly sparkled and over bejeweled dress in my face. She looks like Tinkerbelle and the fairy godmother collided head to head on the fairy freeway trying to rescue some dwarves.
"What kind of costume is that?" Her shrill squeaky voice declares.
"I'm a princess." I reply.
Glaring down her tiny turned up nose, hands on her hips she shrieks, "Hmph, princesses don't wear black. You're not a princess! I'm the princess!"
At that moment I was embarrassed and her words made me rethink how I thought about my costume. I thought she was right, princesses don't wear black. How can I be a princess?
More often than not, our way of thinking about ourselves is solely based on how others see us. How we look, how we act, declaring what are worth is.
Why would we think that way?
Until that little girl said something to me, I thought I was the prettiest princess ever! But her words made me define myself as a fake and a nobody. We must ignore what people think and say about us and listen to the One that matters.
"forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:" 1 Peter 1:18-19 KJV
Christ Himself thinks that we are worth shedding His blood for. He chose to die for us, for you personally. Even if you were the only person on Earth, He would have died just for you.
Our worth, your worth, isn't defined by how mere humans see you. But by how the Creator, God, sees you. And He chose you over everything else.
You are worth the "precious blood of Christ". And there is nothing worth more than that.
So even though my dress was black and not covered in glitter and ruffles, I was still a princess. And by the time the party was over and I was home, I knew I was still a princess...no matter what color my dress was.
And if you are saved and have accepted Him as Saviour, then guess what? That makes you a son or daughter of a King, heirs to the throne, worthy in the sight of God, princes and princesses of Heaven!
If that little girl could see me now...
I am a princess!