Back when I was a Young Women leader, I decided to do my personal progress and earn my Young Womanhood Medallion. The theme I had chosen for the year for our Young Women was about fairy tales, so for my Choice and Accountability project I chose to write a fairy tale for the young women.
When we made the teaching schedule for the year, I planned it so that I would be the one teaching the Choice and Accountability lesson, and I had written this story and planned that lesson just for that purpose. I had handouts - everything. Then the Sunday came and I completely FORGOT I was teaching. I was sitting in Sunday school before YW when I thought "Gee, I wonder who is teaching today?" Then it hit me - I AM!!! I couldn't believe I had forgotten. How on the world could I forget something like that - and this lesson of all lessons? I was heartbroken, and really stressed out since it was almost time for YW. In the foyer I mentioned my dilema to a few friends, Jenie and Shari who just happened to be standing there. Jenie said she had the talks from the YW broadcast in her bag. She had just felt the need to print them off that morning. She offered them to us. Shari, who was one of our teachers, said she had just read one of those talks and had been so impressed by it and at the time had really wanted to share it with the young women. She offered right then to teach the lesson for me! How wonderful is that?!? And the talk was about queens and princesses, and went exactly with out theme for the year. Shari taught the impromptu lesson using the conference talk that Jenie happened to have in her bag. She did an amazing job, certainly better than I would have done under the circumstances. I was SO relieved, and so grateful! Shari saved the day!
I got to give my special Choice and Accountability fairy tale lesson the next week. It happened to also be my farewell lesson, because I had been unexpectedly released a few days before (maybe I was released for just such things as being a dingbat and forgetting my lessons), and this very special lesson that I had so carefully planned turned out to be on my very last Sunday with those dear girls.
It was easy for me to see the small miracles: my desire to have a very special lesson that particular month, my completely forgetting my lesson, Jenie having the right conference talk with her, and Shari just having read that talk and offering to teach it - just so that I could give a special lesson and what I didn't know at the time would be my last Sunday as president. I recognized it as something more than coincidence, a tender mercy of the Lord.
Anyway, here is my story that I wrote for that lesson. It was written for my young women, but it's message is for all of us, especially me. Enjoy.
The Castle Without Clocks
By Rachelle VanBuskirk
And now her chance had finally come! On her twelfth birthday the lovely girl was given the opportunity to earn her place on the King’s court. She must prove herself worthy to live with the King. She left her loving family to live in a room at the base of the clock tower in the middle of the village. The room was very large and filled to the rafters with bales of straw. In one corner were a comfortable bed, a dressing table, and a spinning wheel. The girl was instructed that she must spin the straw into gold for the King, and if she had made enough gold, by the time the King came, then she would be admitted into the castle to live forever. However, the girl was also given a warning that every time the great clock struck the hour, one blade of straw would disappear, never to be recovered.
Now this task was not as daunting to the girl as you might think. It was not impossible at all, and this girl certainly did not need a funny little man with a funny long name to spin the straw into gold for her. In fact, no one could spin the straw for her. She was required to spin her own gold, which she was prepared to do. You see, both of her parents were quite adept at spinning gold, and were well known in the land for the great amounts of gold they had spun out of the mere straw that they had been given. From a very young age, the girl hat sat at her mother’s knee, watching her deftly work the spinning wheel. Now that is was her turn, the girl felt quite confident that she knew just how it was to be done.
The maiden got to work immediately at the wheel. She found spinning to be a bit tricky at first, but she quickly got the hang of it. As she worked she realized just how much she enjoyed the spinning, and she found quite a sense of accomplishment to see the spool of newly spun gold thread getting fatter and fatter, and then another spool and another spool.
When she was too tired to spin another blade of straw, she went to sleep, but woke up early the next morning and began spinning again. There was so much straw to be spun, and she had no way of knowing when the King would come for his gold. She was absolutely determined to please the King and earn a place on his court when he came. She spun all day, and late into the night, and all the next day and into that night too. She spun for days on end, with the clock chiming above her every hour. Each time she heard the great chime she would wonder if this was the hour the great king would come. But her never did.
After time, the girl’s spinning began to slow. She would look out of the room’s small window and watch the people in the village out enjoying the lovely sunshine. Certainly it would not hurt, in fact in might even do her some good to take a short break and get a breath of fresh air. The girl ventured just outside of the room, stretched her legs and had a short conversation with some passers-by. But when she heard the loud clang of the clock, she remembered her task and went right back to work.
As time passed, these short breaks became more frequent and lasted longer. Each time she would venture out further and further from the room at the base of the clock tower. At first the chiming clock reminded her of the task awaiting her, but she would tell herself that the King would certainly understand her need to get some fresh air, or that she had been working really hard, and had probably spun enough gold already, or that the King already had plenty of gold, and really didn’t need the gold she could spin for him. The sound of the clock chime began to fade for the maiden. Of course, the clock was still chiming as loudly as ever, for the kingdom’s great clock never stops ticking and is loud enough to be heard throughout all the land (except, of course for the King’s castle.) Soon the girl stopped hearing it all together.
Days and weeks passed, and the girl no longer thought of the room of straw. Then, one day, she began to hear rumors in the village about the coming of the King. The King! She had forgotten about the King and her dream of living in the great castle on the hill! She remembered the room full of straw at the base of the clock tower, and raced back to it. Everything was just as she left it long ago, except that, to her surprise, much of the straw was gone! How could so much straw have disappeared? How many hours had she wasted? She looked at the spools of gold that she had spun. Would they really be enough for the King? She feared it would fall short. The girl collapsed on the pile of straw and wept. But soon the loud clang from the clock above roused her from her despair.
Perhaps it was not too late after all. If she worked quickly and deftly with the time she had left, she still might have time, before the King came, to spin enough gold to win his favor. The maiden moved her spinning wheel near the window so that she could have a clear view of the castle on the distant hillside. Then she went back to her spinning. She remembered once again how much she enjoyed spinning that shimmering thread of gold. Whenever she felt tired or distracted, she would gaze at the castle far away on the misty hillside and her energy for the work would be renewed. In fact, it seemed that the more that she spun, the closer the castle appeared. Where before she could only see the distant spires above the mist, she could now make out the glimmering windows, the colorful high-flying flags, and the ornately carved façade.
The maiden spun and spun until one day when she reached for another handful of straw she found that all the straw was gone, not because the great clock had chimed it all away, but because she had spun every last blade of it into gold! At that very moment she heard the royal trumpets sound and her King walked through the door in all of his majesty.
The girl fell to her knees at the sight of her king. Questions flooded her mind. Had she spun enough? Had she passed the test and done what was required of her to gain admittance into the King’s castle? Would the king be pleased with her offering of gold?
The king placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and gently lifted her to standing again. Then pointing to the spools and spools of fine gold he said, “Well done thou good and faithful servant! Your offering is acceptable to me and you will come to dwell with me forever in my castle – not as a lady in waiting, but as a princess, my very own child. You shall inherit all that I have. And the gold you have so carefully spun is all returned to you as your reward for you to enjoy forever!”
And the princess lived happily ever after in the castle without clocks.
The End.
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