The Fairy Tale Parables

There once was a young orphan girl who was sent word that the King wished to adopt her. Her name was Gilda and, as one looked upon her, she seemed hardly more than a peasant, clothed in her drab and gray raiment along with her dirty countenance and hopeless glaze in her eyes.

But as the day for her joining the new family approached, the King sent a message to her that she was to come to the forest. Gilda was afraid, but in the end ventured from the pointless drudgery of her existence into the shadows beneath the trees. She found that a path had been prepared and near the eave of the forest was a small signpost that had words engraved upon it. “To the one who receives Him, He gives the right to become a child of God,” it said (from John 1:12). She walked along musing over the message when she passed by another which said, “If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (from Romans 8:25). And then, after awhile, she came upon a third sign which read, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (from Romans 8:18).

The gloom under the trees frightened Gilda, but the signs strengthened her resolve. She continued along the path wondering where the path would take her next.