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The Princess: "Hurry up, you're slow." The voice caught my ear, and I turned around. A dad stood next to the hotel elevator, talking to the same little girl I'd seen four times in the last two days. I'd guess she was about 4-years-old. Her dark curls and silvery plastic princess crown had drawn my eye each time I'd crossed her path. "Not that button, stupid," her dad said, as she pushed the up instead of the down arrows. I cringed. Each time I'd seen her, this girl's parents had spoken harshly and demeaned her value.

Angered, I wanted to tell the man to appreciate this girl—to notice she was trying to listen. Yet, I doubted that would help, and it might cause him to unleash his anger on me or, worse, on her. Wanting to offer some kindness, I smiled at the little girl and said, "I like your crown."

She looked up. Then she gave me just the faintest of smiles—her lips upturning at the edges. A ding sounded, and then she and her dad disappeared into the elevator. The doors closed.

The Pain: Even now, the pain I shared for a moment with this girl lingers.

I think of another princess—my youngest daughter, Katriel, whose name means "God is my crown." She and I are hovering over pictures at the kitchen table as she tries, yet again, to use her lips—as the speech therapist taught her, so she might make a "b" sound. I admire her persistence just as searingly as I feel her pain when I arrive to pick her up from preschool and see her playing alone—unable to say enough words to make a single friend.

So many evenings after my husband would come home, I'd head outside, look up at the moon and cry to God, asking that her struggles would stop. But I became a different mom through my princess' pain—a mom who understood Mother Teresa's words, "Ours is not to be successful, ours is to be faithful." Walking with my daughter through pain has transformed me—from an avowed success addict, voted "Most Likely to Succeed" in high school—into someone who knows much more now of unconditional love.

The Passage: It seems almost backwards that we find wholeness not in fixing ourselves, but in lifting others—whether they're in our home, across the street, across the tracks or around God's world. The Bible affirms this pattern of helping others as a path to full life, saying:

"… if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday." (Isaiah 58:10)

When we lessen others' pain, we live out our purpose and find intimacy with the One who affirms we belong to him, that we're daughters of the King. Our choice today, to lift up another, models a way to heal others on our planet.

The Prayer: The little princess girl, who smiled at me from beneath her brown curls and shiny crown, lives on in my prayers. She also helped me decide to work for MOPS, because MOPS creates groups where people carry each other. We grow into the women we're designed to be, and we gain a sense of our beloved-ness to God. We discover we're real princesses as we lessen others' pain.

The pain first … then the princess. Christ suffered pain … so we might know our true worth in God's eyes. Reducing others' pain, we find our value, our relationships and God's good for people on this planet restored.

Naomi Cramer Overton, President, MOPS International

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