LIVE

Cinderella is a big hit at our house. So is Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and the rest of them...something about hidden royalty dressed in yesterday's pjs just sits right with my girls. (yesterday's pj's is how my girls wear their princess-ness.) If you ask my 3-year-old her name, she'll tell you with hand on her hip and just a bit of attitude, "Princess Elise Carly Trivette". (and we just don't mention that Elise is really her middle name and not her first name because when "Princess" is not just a title but your NAME, everything else IS in the middle....who cares what order...)

I was thinking about our 100DAYS....to own the corner of honesty for a moment, my 100DAY resolution has been so long gone I'm not sure I would recognize the back of her head....life got in the way of my resolution....I got in the way of my resolution....why can I not for the LIFE of me just stick a commitment out till it's end? I can do it when it involves someone else in the mix...but when it's a commitment I've made to myself? Well, I give myself the short end of the stick every.single.time.

And here's what came to me this morning with an ugly-cry-heave of emotion lodging itself squarely in my throat....when we continue in the same pattern of slavery-lifestyle that dictated our past, we will never have time, room, or energy to engage in the priorities befitting our new station....to put it another way, when we, as Cinderellas, keep behaving like it's our job to be slave to a lie, we cheat ourselves - even prevent ourselves from fulfilling our royal duties as princesses(who we really are, royalty in Christ)....

God has a call on your life....but it is your choice to take that calling on and live it out. If you do not realize who you are in Christ, and who He is in you, you will forever be in a whirlpool of frustration....you know you are not as you should be, but what you know you should be doing, you don't do....the epitome of Romans chapter 7. And as my mother always says, "Stop 'shoulding' on yourself."

A devotional I was reading suggested these questions as checks to make sure we are living in a way that mirrors our true identity:
Have we been born again? Then we are of Christ and we can trust His finished work on our behalf.
In whom do we trust? Those who believe in Jesus are the sons (and daughters!) of God.
Whose work are we doing? (This is the one that made me choke on my own inhale) We are sure to serve someone, for whomever we serve is truly our lord.
What company do we keep? If we belong to Jesus, we will fellowship with those who wear the cross. (not literally, necessarily)
What is our conversation? Is it earthly or heavenly?
What have we learned of our Master? for servants learn much from their masters to whom they are apprenticed. If we serve our time with Jesus, it will be said of us, as it was of Peter and John, "They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus."

In answering these questions we can clearly identify whether we are living like we're still slaves to our old lives, or if we are slaves to the Love that set us free....set us free to live out our "royalty" for the glory of Him Who saved us.....

"I am the resurrection and the life.

Those who believe in me will live, even though they die;
and those who live and believe in me will never die."
John 11:25-26

What is your name? "Oh, I'm just so-and-so's mom, so-and-so's wife, so-and-so's employee..."

No. NO! You are Princess. You are royalty. You are called to a divine inheritance and captured by an extravagant grace.

LIVE. LIVE!