On Being Royalty

Several years back, I took an oath of prayer and service and became a member of an Episcopal Order:  The Daughters of the King (or DOK).  Recently, I have been prayerfully seeking to know if I should deepen my commitment as a DOK, and I know I have been swallowed up the past several years by “life” and work.  As if I am a slave to making an income.  Mind you — I believe my job was a gift from God — I am grateful for it and have learned much about facing fear and challenges and trying to do my job as unto the Lord, not to men.  And so I don’t want to sound ungrateful.  I just pray I can move on at some point to devote more time to what I believe to be my calling. 

I believe my calling is to encourage young people through writing.  And so it was very exciting yesterday because I recently re-produced book one of The Parables of Ancient Earth trilogy — and yesterday, in the mail, I received my first “royalty” check.  It made me laugh, because it wasn’t much money.  But it reminded me of my high calling as a Daughter of the King, because the check said Royalties. 

The check was for $5.41.  And I felt a nudge to look up verse 5:41 from each of the Gospels just to see what encouragement God might have for me. 

And wouldn’t you know…Mark 5:41 says: “He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha Koum” (which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up”). 

Well…this HAPPENS to be the name that the High Seraph gives to Apphia – one of the main characters in the trilogy – at the end of book three in the trilogy — The High Seraph renames her Talitha Koum encouraging her to get up and go forward.  I chose the name because of this verse in the Bible.  And so that fact that the first Royalty check was for 5:41 in no way surprises me.

In addition, a few weeks back on 11-7-13, when I had started to re-read my handbook — the one I studied to become a Daughter of the King, I wrote the following poem:

Bloodied and amputated at the knees

I get up.

By the grace of God

and the Power of the Holy Spirit

and the work of Christ

I go forward.

For His Sake.

And so, not only was this verse an affirmation that God has called me to write the trilogy to encourage others — but He encouraged me to “get up.”   I have fallen and failed Him repeatedly in my life and even recently, but He sees me as his “Little girl”:   a Daughter of the Almighty King.