Something really precious was revealed to me.
I love movies. And, one of my favorites is A Little Princess. The version I am speaking of is the Warner Brothers Version, made in the mid- to late '90s. It was the first movie that I cried over. Before that, I had heard people saying, "I balled in that movie!" But, I never knew the sensation.
Most of the movies that my friends cried in were dramatic love scenes, when one lover was ripped apart from the other. These scenes do not quite have the affect on me that the touching images of a father and daughter or father and son have upon me.
The story for those that are unfamiliar goes like this: A little girl is sent to boarding school by her father, the only living relative she has. The time is set during World War I, and she is being shipped to a boarding school in New York. Her father comforts her and confides in her what every girl desperately needs to hear: You are and will always be my little princess. She believes him. And, this belief is not taken away from her, even when her father is reported to her as dead; even when she has to become a laborer for the boarding school to earn her keep; even though she is left all alone in the world. She spreads the love that her father deeply planted into her heart: she tells other girls who struggle to believe in their significance that they, too, are princesses.
Sarah's father, discovered as not dead but suffering from a serious case of amnesia, is brought back to the United States and is housed right next to Sarah's boarding school. But, even when he comes face to face with Sarah, he cannot remember her and believes that she isn't his daughter.
The final scene is this: the headmaster, who emotionally abuses the girls at the school, accuses Sarah of stealing. She calls for the police to come and arrest Sarah for stealing. In a very dramatic moment (right as Sarah is being taken away by the police), Sarah's father remembers that Sarah is his daughter, and he is her father.
He calls her name: "Sarah!"
She runs to him and replies: "Daddy!"
The tears start rolling in a continuous sequence down my cheeks. Every time.
The reason this story is so precious to me is because it speaks to the deep longing I have to be known my Father; to be sought after by Him; and to be able to cling to Him as a loving, constant, and fierce protector of all that I am. And, unlike Sarah's father in the film, my Father doesn't forget me. And, all who are found in His Son, he doesn't forget you.
"You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry, "Abba! Father!" His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." (Romans 8:15-16)
Arise and be comforted.
The Father knows you and loves you.
"Lift up your hands in [His] sanctuary." (Ps. 124, my note added)
