Battle 1

Lyndsey Battle
January 26, 2014
English 112
This I Believe Essay
Professor Julia Intawiwat
An unexpected Princess
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was seven years old and I was
taking part in my first ever cotillion. I was in the most beautiful pink dress that
was just the right amount of poof and the right amount of shimmer. My mom
had taken me to the hair salon for the first time in my life to get my hair done. I
was in awe of how the stylist took my hair from my natural crazy curls, to these
soft, long and shiny curls. To match my whole attire was my dazzling smile I
had been working on for weeks. That night I felt as though I was transformed
from cute, simple Lyndsey, to an exquisite and ever so stunning real princess.
However, that is not what made my night. What made my night, was when the
speaker looked at me and all of my friends sitting with me and said simply You
guys are real princesses! Daughters of the King! For the first time in my life
someone made my imaginary real. I was a real princess.
However, what I wasnt able to realize as a little seven year old were two
things: 1. That lady was not original and, 2. As a young Christian girl every
conference I go to will mention that statement at least three times. After a while
I got over taking that statement literally and just saw it as a Christian girls
mantra. As I got older, I began going through a stage of self-hatred. I hated

everything about myself. I never could find anything I liked about myself. I could
only look in the mirror for about 20 seconds at a time; any longer and I would
become depressed for the rest of the
Battle 2
day. I longed to be like my friends, to have the skinny figure and the long
straight hair and to have the adorable, flirty personality like them, yet I never
could, no matter how hard I tried to be like them.
So naturally whenever I sat in a conference and heard the speaker spill
out that phrase You are a princess, a Daughter of the King. I would get very
annoyed and frustrated. Questions formed from my frustration would bounce
around my head as I sat in my seat. Questions like Am I really a princess?
Arent princess supposed to be happy? Wheres my prince and my happily ever
after? Why am I stuck in my rags and not at the ball? Sitting in my fog of selfpity and stuck in a hole of my own bias, I was keeping myself from
understanding the real meaning. A real meaning I dont think the ladies at those
conferences knew about.

By the time I got to my sophomore year of high school, I had begun to

come out of the fog of self-pity and escape the hole of my own bias. I began to
get into a real relationship with God. This relationship brought so much freedom,
I was able to see myself in a new light. This new found relationship helped me to
see the only thing that was keeping me in these places: me. Once I was pulled
from out of the fog and the hole, I was then able to see the phrase I am a

princess; Daughter of the King in a whole new light. First off I was looking at
being a princess completely wrong. I am a princess, but not a Disney princess
nor am I actual literal royal. When I say I am a princess; Daughter of the king I
identify myself as a child of God. As a daughter of God I must always represent
Him, just like Kate Middleton must always be aware that she is representing the
royal family. To do so, she must always look a certain way, when attending any
royal visits, so that way people will always know who she is. As a princess
myself, I too have to be aware that I am
Battle 3
representing my Fathers kingdom. I cant do what everyone else does, I cant
wear what every girl wears or even talk the way they talk. Everything I do must
be done in a way that people can always see where I come from. Also
remembering there are people out there waiting and watching to see me fall
from my throne. Something else I noticed, was there was something holding me
back from seeing the meaning of that phrase. You see, every time I thought a
princess I would think about Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, Rapunzel, and Aura. I
would think about their stories and how most of them found their happy ending,
after being rescued by a charming prince and not to mention I didnt have an
animal sidekick. I thought that princesses were supposed to be kind but a little
defiant in order to get what they want, or that as a princess everyone was
supposed to love and adore me. Needless, to say they are not supposed to be
my examples. Instead, of looking at them I should have been looking at
Esther ,who was taken from her home and chosen to marry a king, who has
history of getting rid of his wives when they didnt do as he said. She was filled

with honor, grace, faith, respect and bravery, when she asked him not to kill her
people. Ruth, a woman who was willing to leave all she knew behind to follow
another woman with a heart for God. Mary Magdelean, who sat and listened to
the master. Rahab, who took a leap of faith to protect those she loved and help
strange men. Finally Hannah who prayed and had faith that God would give her
a child and the she was honorable and unselfish and gave him back to God.
These are the women I was supposed to have in mind. Whose whole plot line
was not based on whether or not they had their fairytale ending but if they had
character and faith.
This I believe; that I am a princess. I am not defined by my outward
appearance or my prince. I am not princess stuck in my past but joyous about
my future. I believe I am princess not because of being able to fit into that mold
but because I was made to break that mold. I believe I am princess

Battle 4
made up of faith, honor, bravery, mercy, kindness, joy and love. This I believe
that not only am I a princess, but you too can be a princess; Daughter of the
King.