My Sister Is a Princess

Every princess finds herself living in a small, self-contained community. This community is under the roof of her father’s house. Each member of this little community has his own responsibilities and contribution to make to the whole.

The family, ideally, is a place of love, peace, harmony, security, and close ties that bind each member into a strongly-welded relationship where Christ, the supreme Head, reigns.

Hilda entered the house in a rush. “Oh, Mother,” she called as she kicked off her barn boots by the kitchen table.

“Hilda!” Martha Mae protested sharply. “Don’t you know better than to come into the kitchen with your barn boots on? You are old enough—”

“Listen to A. T.,” Harold teased as he turned from the kitchen washbowl to the towel.

Martha Mae’s eyes flashed as she looked in his direction. “Harold,” she exclaimed. “you are making that clean towel perfectly black! You didn’t wash half the dirt off your arms!”

“A.T.! A.T.! Assistant Trainer! Assistant Trainer!” Little Raymond mimicked the chant he had often heard the older ones sing to Martha Mae.

“Raymond!” Martha Mae exclaimed sharply. “I’ll slap you if you say that once more!”

“Big Sister’s mad,” Harold explained to Raymond in a confidential tone that was intended to reach Martha Mae’s ears, as he wiped the last gray streak on the kitchen towel. “You better watch what you say to her when she is feeling this way.”

Tears filled Martha Mae’s eyes. Quickly she turned and fled upstairs to her room.

“Where’s Martha Mae?” Mother asked as she entered the kitchen.

“I think she’s gone upstairs to pout,” Hilda answered lightly.

But Martha Mae had not gone upstairs to pout. In remorse, she crouched, crying, on her knees by the side of her bed.

“Oh, Father,” she prayed and sobbed, “I’ve failed to speak kindly to my brothers and sisters again. Oh, what shall I do with my sharp tongue? When will I ever learn to control my temper?” And Martha Mae sobbed bitterly.

Soon Martha Mae’s tears subsided and she took a long breath. “Dear Father, I know the way I talk and feel toward my brothers and sisters is wrong. And Father, I am looking to You to give me the victory over this sin that defeats me daily.”

She paused and took another long quivering breath.

“But, Father, how should I feel when I’ve just washed the kitchen floor and they track barn mud across it?”

“The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness and longsuffering,” the Holy Spirit reminded her.

“But, it’s not right that they do it,” Martha Mae protested. “They must learn—”

“But it is Mother’s place to teach them, not yours,” came from her conscience again.

“Mother has often said that if I would just keep quiet and say nothing she could handle the situation so much more easily,” Martha Mae admitted.

“You keep sweet to your friends no matter what they do,” her conscience went on relentlessly. “If Sylvia or Julia had tracked the mud in, you would have laughingly told them it is all right. It is wrong to show more love and kindness to people outside the family than to those who really should be the dearest to you.”

Dear friend, have you ever had the same problem that Martha Mae was struggling with? Have you found your patience with your brothers and sisters very short? Have their ways annoyed you and their habits made you angry? Have you spoken to them sharply and in a way that you would be mortified to even think of speaking to someone outside the family?

The real test of our Christian experience is in how we get along with our family at home especially with our brothers and sisters. You may always speak respectfully to Father and Mother. You may show your love by being happily submissive and obedient to them. But how do things go between you and your brothers and sisters? What is your part in the unpleasant scenes that take place there occasionally? How much do you contribute to the friction that spoils the love and happiness in your home?

Do you remember that “a soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger”* (Proverbs 15:1)?

When you point out a fault in a brother of sister, do you do it in a “spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted”* (Galatians 6:1)?

Do your attitudes and reactions show the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance”* (Galatians 5:22,23)? Do these Christian virtues oil the points of contact between you and your brothers and sisters?

If you honor your mother, you will allow her to instruct and reprove the children, as the Lord has made her responsible to do. Your interference only stirs up resentments and creates new difficulties that magnify her problems many-fold.

The relationship of the true princess with her brothers and sisters is one of helpfulness, sympathetic understanding and a sharing and bearing of all their problems or difficulties.

As a princess you will be a peacemaker. You will not pick on your brothers and sisters. You will refuse to quarrel or dispute.

You will be as courteous to your own brothers and sisters as you are to the brothers and sisters of your friends.

You will not selfishly take advantage of the good nature and kindness of your brothers and sisters, preferring your own advantage in any situation above theirs.

Tell your brothers and sisters that you appreciate what they do for you. Show by thoughtful actions that you love them.

Willingly shoulder your share in the work load, and help to lighten the load for your brothers and sisters.

The princess will acknowledge her mistakes frankly and will apologize for them to her brothers and sisters. She will make wrongs right with those in the home in the same way that she will clear up matters between herself and others outside the home.

The will love by the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

This is the love relationship that the King’s daughter will seek to maintain with her brothers and sisters in the home. By God’s grace, she will daily live in such a way that her little sister or brother could freely and happily say, “My sister is a princess.”