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A friend and a favorite Mom of mine recommended this book to me for my “Bible Lessons in KIDLIT” series. So here goes -
The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko was first done in 1980.
In this story a princess, named Elizabeth, “lived in a castle and had expensive princess clothes”. She makes a big change in her life. A big fierce fire breathing dragon helps her to re-evaluate her choices and perspective in life. As adults we sometimes experience a tragedy that changes our perspective. For the princess, she lost everything (mainly her beautiful outfits) in a fire caused by the dragon. Oh, and she also lost her handsome prince, Ronald. In her quest to rescue Ronald, she begins to see that she doesn’t need the things that she did originally. (expensive clothes and a snobby prince). She becomes a confident, self achiever wearing a paper bag!
I think of two scripture references when I read this story. the first is of the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18:18-29. This “prince” couldn’t get passed his expensive clothes and material things. He wanted to inherit eternal life, but not at the cost of giving up his wordly posessions. In a recent sermon on these verses a pastor told me that wealth has terrible handicaps to it. The more we have, the more our perspective of what is important can be skewed. Especially the perspective of children who may have never known tough times. The truth is we rely more on Walmart than we do on God.
The second scripture that comes to my mind is Matthew 6:25-34. According to this scripture, we don’t need to worry about what we will wear. the Paper Bag princess had that figured out. Elizabeth sets out to rescue Ronald wearing only a paper bag. I wonder how many of us would be willing to set out to rescue others if all we had to wear was a paper bag. Instead of complaining about her losses, Elizabeth sets out to fix things. In doing so she discovers that it isn’t important what she is wearing or even what Ronald is wearing. It’s what is on the inside of us that counts. I wonder how many of us really practice that. Do we care more what’s on the inside than on the outside. Don’t wait for a tragedy to remove the things in your life that you are puting too much importance on. And when you read this book to your children, help them to gain a proper perspective of how God can take care of our every need. We simply need to be willing to wear a paper bag! Although, God will clothe us in much more! -Inside and Out!
