STORY: Prayers of a Princess

The little girl, just 7, passed down the avenue in the car with her mom. They had been living in their car for the last several weeks. She was almost always hungry and never felt safe or really clean. Just up ahead in a warm bright shaft of sunshine she caught sight of two girls, about her age, climbing out of a nice shiny car. They were dressed in the most pretty outfits the little girl had ever seen. They reminded her of beautiful fairy princesses.

Just then she said in her young heart, a prayer to the God she believed was real “please, Father God, someday, may I have a fairy princess dress like that and not be hungry and afraid and sorry for my mom…?”

Another mom was harried and busy and just had to get her girls to the fairy princess party on time. Just last Sunday at church, her heart had stirred when hearing and reading the writings of the Apostle James. Here she was, all wound up about a party that few of the participants would truly cherish. Just as she pulled to the curb, from the side of her eye she saw the face of a sweet young girl her daughter’s age, watching her girls climb out of her new SUV.

Two months later the mom with the twin girls in the fairy princess dresses stood in the door of their closet and shook her head. Too many clothes! Too much stuff! She had the radio on. There was a spot about a place called Union Gospel Mission, Center for Women and Children. She thought, “There would be a great place to take all these nice clothes my daughters have outgrown and no longer wear.”

The little girl walked with her mom through the place at CWC called the Boutique. It was filled with clothes and shoes and back-packs, and…two beautiful fairy princess dresses. After a hard time trying to live in their old car, her mom had decided to go to a place that was safe and warm. A place called Union Gospel Mission. The little girl realized at the moment her mom handed her the Fairy Princess dress she had prayed for, that God had heard her prayers.

This is not a fairy tale story. In our great little city of Coeur d’Alene there is a place called the Center for Women and Children, of the Union Gospel Mission.

I see the lives of women children changed, impacted with hope and goals and courage.

I have the honor and privilege of working there.

JON KEITH

Coeur d’Alene