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| Everything is going to be okay. Really. |
I sat on the shaggy brown rug of my daughter’s room playing dollhouse with her.
“You set up the bedrooms and I’ll do the bathrooms,” she instructed me. Five year old girls are very organized and a little bossy to boot.
We made up all kinds of stories. Brother Johnny Dollhouse broke his leg and had to be rushed to Little People Princess Castle Hospital for a cast. Then Daddy Dollhouse pushed him around in a stroller while whipping up a batch of blueberry pancakes.
Mommy Dollhouse put Baby Isabella on the swing. She fell off and wouldn’t stop crying, but thankfully she was okay. That was a close one, though!
The whole family took a boat trip to Paris, which is also conveniently right next to Hawaii. Mommy and Daddy Dollhouse kissed under the Eiffel Tower.
That kiss energized Daddy Dollhouse so much by that he decided to ski off the roof of the house back home, resulting in two broken legs of his own. Poor Daddy Dollhouse, now who will coach Johnny’s basketball games?
It’s hard to be the Dollhouse family.
After the playing was done, I made some real nonburnt toast in my own real kitchen. I pushed aside a little of last week’s lingering sadness while I spread the butter.
Like the Dollhouse family, I’m nursing some broken things.
When what you feel is difficult to process, you have to ask yourself the most important question:
Because this is what I feel:
I feel offended.
I feel weary.
I feel inadequate.
I feel misunderstood.
I feel like my needs are endless and my supply is short.
But I know differently. Unless I let what I know do battle against what I feel, I will never overcome my fear, my insecurity, or my sadness.
Broken Dollhouse legs don’t worry me too much, because they’re not true things. But when the story is unfolding, they are very true to my daughter. It will be okay, though. She knows Little People Princesses can fix a broken Dollhouse boy, and then everyone goes on a grand vacation.
Spit spot, isn’t Dollhouse life grand?
I’m not going to tell her how many cynical hearts would scoff at how we play.
This make-believe world my daughter loves has the answer to the most important question.
She’s mastered what we need to know in that dollhouse of hers: Everything is going to be okay.
The mean email from an old friend, the judgmental tone of a coworker, the cold response of a spouse, the newest mistake of a wayward child, they all feel so very true. In technicolor brilliance, our sorrows are all true here in the Fallen Kingdom, where sin and evil have access to our lives.
But if we close our eyes, and focus on what we know, we can find refuge in a place much like Little People Princess Hospital. The gates to the Upside Down Kingdom open wide to all who have eyes of faith and hearts of flesh.
Upside Down Kingdom is the place that all the sad things become ways the King makes you new. The King is perfectly able to fix Fallen People like us, and then we go on a grand adventure to show others the way to to the King.
Don’t you see? What we feel doesn’t have to define our day, our life, or the world. What we know can bind the wounds and soothes the pain.
The King’s forgiveness is our joy.
His joy is our strength.
His grace make us enough.
He knows everything about us, understands us, and still loves us.
He never leaves us in the ashes.
We are raised. We are transformed. WE ARE LOVED.
Spit spot, isn’t life in Upside Down Kingdom grand?
I take a bite of golden, buttery toast, savoring the beautiful truth that I know. The sadness flees as love saves the day once again in my heart.
Yes, it’s grand here. So very, very grand.
