Letter to a Little Princess
Dear Girls,
After listening to so many stories about Princess Precious, I think you might be curious to know how she became a princess in the first place. For you see, every single princess in the King’s castle is adopted. So it was that Precious once lived outside the palace gates….
Her name was Wretched then, for she was hardly ever happy. If you had seen her then, you would not have recognized the sad face of the dirty girl. She played in alley ways and dump heaps, where everyone lived to have their own way. The village of Sin was quite a horrible place!
It was one sunny day when Wretched went out to gather thistle flowers that she first saw the King’s carriage. As she stared at the beautiful horses, a voice said, “Oh, look at that poor, dirty girl!”
Wretched looked down, embarrassed, but a smiling girl stepped out of the carriage and handed her a basket. “My name is Princess Hope,” she said, “and I have brought you a gift.” As Wretched watched her ride away, she thought, If only I was a princess and rode in that carriage, I would be smiling, too.
The basket held a book, a ball of soap, and some grapes. In the book Wretched found beautiful pictures of a palace and flowers she had never seen before. Next she smelled the soap and ate the grapes, then started walking home. It was only a dark room with an old straw mat, and Wretched shared it with three other street children, called Selfish, Hateful, and Tears. Wretched didn’t want them to see her gifts, so she hid the basket in a bush. But all that week she couldn’t forget the kind princess and she wished she would come again.
And she did. This time Princess Hope invited her into the carriage, but Wretched said nervously, “I can’t. My clothes are just terrible.”
The princess only smiled. “Papa is the King and has plenty of good clean ones. He wants you to come up to the palace so He can talk with you.”
Just then Hateful came and whispered, “Don’t go! The King shuts children up in His castle and makes them into slaves!” Wretched gave a little shudder and turned quickly away from the carriage and the kind princess.
I don’t have space to tell you all that happened in the next weeks, but it was true that Wretched was more miserable than ever. Home was full of angry voices, and the streets didn’t seem interesting anymore. The carriage often passed the village, and several times Hope or some of the other princesses talked with her. It was in this way that Wretched finally decided she would take the trip to the King’s Palace.
As they passed through the gates into the bright gardens Wretched became terribly afraid. “If the King sees me, He will surely toss me out!” she said to Princess Desire, who sat beside her.
“Surely not, for He has given you a special invitation,” Desire said, and gave Wretched such a loving hug that she burst into tears. “Come, He is waiting to meet you,” Hope said, and they helped the poor, ragged child to the entrance way.
So Wretched walked into the King’s courtroom, and knelt for the first time before His throne. “Dear child, I want you to be mine,” she heard Him say, as He laid a hand upon her head. “Are you willing to forsake your old home and become My princess?” Wretched thought about her straw mat and hateful companions, and wished she would never see them again. But how could a poor, ragged girl live here?
“Come, and I will wash you and give you a royal robe,” King Jesus said. Wretched looked up at His kind face, and then slipped her little brown hand in His. As He squeezed it tight He said very lovingly, “And I will call you my Princess Precious.” So it was that little Wretched was never heard of again, and a new princess came to live in the palace where she was always loved and cared for by the King.
And, dear girls, there is room in that great palace for every one of you, too.
With love,
Aunt Faith
