This past weekend Jerry and I got ambitious and pulled our big wooden bed out from the wall to clean and vacuum behind it. We pulled off the mattress to clean and you wouldn't believe what I found. Between the mattress and the boxspring, on my side of the bed was a very old and very shriveled up GREEN PEA!
There is a fairy tale about the princess and the pea. She arrived at a castle one rainy night looking for a place of refuge from the storm. She told the family in the castle that she was a princess, but, due to her disheveled appearance that was hard to believe. They invited her in and fixed up a bed for her. They piled up mattresses and blankets so that it was nice and soft. Underneath the very bottom mattress they placed a pea. They figured that if she were a true princess she would feel the pea as she slept and then they would know that she had been telling the truth. As the story goes, she had a terrible night, due to discomfort from the pea. The prince of the castle knew that she truly was a princess, they fell in love, and lived happily ever after.
Upon finding the pea in my bed I commenced asking my children if any of them remembered putting it there. Alas, no one could remember…or wanted to confess. So I will never know which of my children wanted to find out if I really was a princess.
This morning…..when I woke up to a wet bed from a little girl who crawled in at 5am and had an accident, I certainly did not feel like a princess. This afternoon as I cleaned up from a flooded toilet, compliments of that same sweet little girl who had a little too much fun with toilet paper, I certainly did not feel like a princess.
But I hold on to the truth that I have been taught since I was a little girl…that I really am a princess. I come of a royal lineage, and I have great potential. Though I may not always feel like a princess I need to remember to be "Loyal to the Royal" within. (Harold B. Lee) My Heavenly Father is the King. He wants me to choose the right and continually strive to be like him…to always behave as should the daughter of a King.
I came across a poem by Anna Johnson that was printed in the Children's Friend back in 1959. The whole poem is beautiful but I will just include the first stanza:
"I AM a Child of Royal Birth,
My Father is KING of Heaven and Earth.
My spirit was born in Courts on High.
A Child Beloved, a Princess (Prince) AM I!"
