365 Project Day 31: Do You Know Who You Are?

Canon 5D Mark ll, 24-70 L, 3.5 aperture, 1/60 shutter, 500 ISO

In Disney’s movie Tangled, there is a princess who is torn away from her regal parents at an early age and raised in a tower by an old witch, who tells her she is no one of great consequence. She is never allowed to leave the tower, and the witch instills fear into her through lies about the outside world and about her. And yet, through her window, she sees beauty across the water. Her real father, the King, extravagantly celebrates her birthday every year by flying brilliant lanterns across the bay in hopes she will see them and be found. They are a beacon of hope from his heart to hers, and something inside her recognizes that, and feels compelled to search it out further. She recognizes the beauty as part of her, and knows there is more for her than the tower she has lived in all of her life.

I wept in this part of the movie, as did Katie. All great stories parallel the greatest story of all. The story of Redemption. It is a tale of a great King who risks all He has to rescue those imprisoned by an evil prince.  It is our story. This world is not our home. It is not our identity. It cannot hold us, name us, or tell us what we will become. We are of a far greater Kingdom. We are the colorful glory reflected in the mirror. We have within each of us a beacon of light that will bring others home with us.

Come look in the mirror and see. You are children of a Great King. He loves you extravagantly, and will lavish His joy on you every chance He gets.

1 John 1:3 ~ “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”