Heiress.

Unlike most of the openings to entries on this here little blog, I cannot tell you an excuse about galavanting all over who-knows-where as the reason for such a long delay between posts.

Nope. Sorry.

I have been home.

And, actually, last week as I left the house for something I realized I hadn't left the house in 8 days.

Why would I?

I live here, I eat here, I sleep here, I work here, and--more recently--I get snowed in here.

Yes.

Which is actually this post's excuse about why it's been way too long since we have talked (and I miss you, btw.).

A blizzard knocked my internet out for 6 days.

Some of you don't believe me.

But believe me.

I live in the woods in the middle of nowhere.

This kind of thing happens to people who live where I do.

When I was a kid, did you know that an ice storm in this area knocked the electricity out at my house for 7 days? Yeah. And not 25 miles south of where I grew up, they didn't have electricity for 13 days.

Like I said.

This kind of thing happens.

I didn't stay away this long because I chose to.

: )

That being said, what I have to tell you has nothing to with me being snowed in/internet-ed out.

No, what I've been thinking about lately has everything to blame on Pinterest and the cutest little girlie in my church.

For whatever reason, I have found myself pinning pictures like this for the last...let's say...year and a half.

I know. I know. It's excessive.

And, do I usually wear this much jewelry?

No.

Well, actually. Yeah, I probably do.

But that's beside the point.

I started pinning pictures like this because they always elicited a certain emotion out of me.

Something along the lines of.....heiress.

Now, while my last name is one in the same as a large pharmaceutical company, that's not my end of the lineage, so I won't be inheriting that.

And while my uncle pretty much did invent the mudflap, I won't be inheriting any of that either.

No, heiress is not a descriptive word of me.

But bracelets like that make me feel like one.

A few days after Christmas a little cutey-patootie at church walked in looking pretty much like this:

The only difference is that her arms and fingers were completely frosted with rings and bracelets. And she was absolutely adorable.

A couple days later I was reading and came across this little verse: "this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."

Isn't that a magnificent phrase? "Riches unsearchable." I think about that little cutie in church with all her "princess" jewelry on, thinking she is just the prettiest little thing that ever walked through those doors, no doubt, as she sits on her daddy's lap.

You know, to a kid, $10 is a lot of money. And if she knew her daddy had $10 she would probably think he could buy the moon or something. But I bet you it has never occurred to her yet that her father, of course, let's just say, has more than $10.

He has, to a "princess" her age, Riches Unsearchable.

As in, more than she can comprehend at this point.

I like to think I understand money. I am not a shopper, yet I am no cheap-skate. I realize just how fast sometimes it comes, and just how fast it can leave. Money is fluid, to say the least, and that concept I grasp.

But then I think about cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10). Or, Al had a friend in Texas who owned a ranch of 100,000 acres, and my mind is blown because the thought alone of turning my two-acre field into a garden freaks me out and makes me hyperventilate. And then I think about God having power to move or wipe out or multiply any and every billionaire's fortune with a snap of his fingers. 

Or the breath of his nostrils. 

And suddenly I realize I know nothing.

All this time I have been thinking I am one of these socialite-esque women with my arms and neck and earlobes bedecked with jewels and metals of the most beautiful kind. A woman with a handle on and an understanding of the world.

But then. Then I see a little princess sitting on her lap as she, too, is bedecked in all her "finery," and at that moment I know: I am just like her.

I walk into my Sunday School class or grocery store or airport or wherever I choose to be as I am donned with all my "pretties," feeling like a princess.

When really, still like her, I am actually just a little girl sitting on the lap of my Father who possesses riches unsearchable---way more than the $10 my mind thinks makes him rich.

For while I can't fathom it, He owns all the cattle on a thousand hills. 

All my little gems and all my little ideas of how the world works.

Good daddies take care of their little "princesses," did you know that? Or their little "super-heroes," whichever the case may be. And we play dress up and imagine all kind of things to be true about the world; our vision of this world still so small, so not actually reality, and they are amused and in love with us and our naivety about what it is they actually do. Completely unaware of how much they actually possess. Dead to the knowledge of the lengths they would go to protect and rescue and provide for these cute little children that we are, dressed up in all our costumes and all our finery, as we are convinced we are actually Spider Man in real life, or we ardently believe that these pretty things all over our hands and arms we got for Christmas are "Real Diamonds."

And it goes beyond our comprehension how many of those cattle on those hills he would willingly sell....or sacrifice....to do what needs to be done for his children.

So maybe today as you are running around, feeling like an heiress in all your pretty jewelry, or feeling like you have to take care of all the monsters and bad guys in the world, maybe you should just remember this: The reality of your life is that you are sitting on the lap of a Father whose riches are unsearchable. A Father who has not only fought, but beaten all those monsters in your closet, and a good Daddy, the kind that gives his children only good gifts, and one day, one day...all those jewels will be real and all those cattle will be a part of your inheritance.