What Would I Change? - "A Little Princess."

One of my favorite song of all time is one that I used to sing at our church's girl's camp and I now often sing to my girls when I put them to bed.  The whole thing is beautiful, but a there's a line in it that always strikes me because as I sing it, I feel the love that God has for me and I remember who I really am.  It says:

Long before the time you can remember
Our Father held you in his arms so tenter
His loving arms released you as he sent you down to earth
He said, "My child, I love you, don't forget your great worth.
Walk tall, you're a Daughter, a child of God
Be strong, please remember who you are.
Try to understand, you're part of His great plan.
He's closer than you know, reach up, He'll take your hand.

Some of my cousins I were discussing the book, "A Little Princess" by Frances Burnett yesterday.

This is one of my favorite books because it reminds me that I am"Princess", a daughter of a Heavenly King, and it gets me thinking about how I might act differently if I truly grasped the reality of the potential within me and those around me.

Sara liked to "pretend" she was a princess so she could try to act like one regardless of where she was, but in the end we find that there is no "pretending" about it.  Every girl (and woman) is a princess by nature and those who try to live like one can reach their divine potential.

This book made me reflect on a quote I head at a CES fireside recently.  Elder Urchdorf said, "Too many people go about their lives thinking they are of little worth, when in reality they are elegant and eternal creatures, of infinite value and potential, beyond their imagination."

I asked my cousins what being a princess meant.  They used words like "refined" and "polished".  I like those descriptions because as we go through life, we learn and grow and our rough edges are made smooth - we become more as we are meant to become.

I wondered, what would I change about the way I am if I try to grasp the potential within me?

I think I'm going to try harder to see the divinity within everyone I come in contact with.

Here's some of my favorite quotes about it:

On behaving in a way that reflects your divine potential:

"She says [being a princess] has nothing to do with what you look like or what you have.  It has only to do with what you think of and what you do."

"There was something friendly about Sara and people always felt it." (30)


"Perhaps I'm a hideous child, and no one will ever know just because I haven't had any trials." (41)


"She was a motherly person" - she ran and helped the little ones up and comforted them.


Becky when talking about Sara, "I wouldn't mind how [hard things got] if I might have [talking to Sara] to look forward to." (67)


"If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that..." (80)


"Everything is a story.  You're a story, I'm a story..." (149)


When she was having a really hard time: "her affection for everything she loved increased."

"If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside.  It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it." (178)

"It seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above the rest of the world." (179)

In her deep hunger and misery, she was able to see someone more forlorn then herself and she gave.

Her giving, influenced others who became more giving.

"I was wondering what my father would say if he knew where I am tonight." (253) - she said this when Miss Minchin was being particularly awful to her - she was talking of her earthly father, but it's helpful to think this about our Heavenly Father and how we treat others.

On anger:
"If you were a princess, you did not fly into rages."


"It's true, sometimes I do pretend I am a princess.  I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one."


"When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage and they are not...there's nothings so strong as rage exept what makes you hold it in - that's stronger." (160)


She would think of princesses who "could not be made to be rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. (180)


When people were mean to her she would think, "You don't know that you are saying those things to a princess...I only spare you because you ... don't know any better." (179)

To me, a princess is someone who asks herself, "What would God have me do?" and then goes forward and does it.  That is how one becomes "refined" and "polished".  I hope my cousins see the divinity I see within each of them.