The Power of Story

I watched Princess Diaries again the other day. I love that movie on many different levels. I’d been missing it, the songs from the soundtrack popping up every now and again on my ipod. So I stuck it in while I was alone on Sunday afternoon—the boys and hubby at baseball practice, my daughter at school working on the yearbook. I spent most of the movie picking up around the house, doing dishes, etc. But near the end of the film I sat down and watched.

It was just at the part where she runs into the ball, dripping wet, and accepts being a princess. I bawled. This time the spiritual application hit me square in the face. Suddenly I saw myself in the character.

Do you see it, too? We are insignificant nobodies until one day we accept Christ and become somebody—a child of the King of Kings. But we are still a mess. We have to undergo a transformation—often while kicking and screaming—in order to better reflect who our Father is. We get put in uncomfortable situations. We mess up. We even try to quit. But along the journey, we grow. And eventually, we get it. I am God’s child. I am who He says I am. And we stand up and accept it.

I’ve been there. And I so well remember the time in my life when I finally stood up and accepted that I’d been grafted into a royal bloodline. However, as Mia tells the faithful Michael just a few moments later—after she’s been transformed from a drowned rat into a beautiful princess—“I may be royal, but I’m still me.” I cried again, realizing that God’s transformation of us doesn’t change who we are, it enhances it. We become more truly who He made us to be.

I got all of that out of a sweet coming-of-age Disney romance. And isn’t that the power of story?