If you are a Facebook friend or follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen this over and over and over and over and over again in the past month or so. 140 character limits are a beautiful thing and we love Twitter for its brevity, but some things just need to be explained.

Swim the Moat is our motto this year in Dinner Theater. We are putting on the show Once Upon a Mattress this weekend to raise money for Send Me Now missions. I cannot stress enough how hilarious our cast is or how much fun we have had together over the past 2 months. 

But despite how much we have enjoyed our time together (or how weirdly obsessed we have become about each other), putting together a musical is hard work. Especially when it is ENTIRELY student led. Fortunately we have an extremely dedicated and talented director, Elizabeth Barrett, who has done an awesome job whipping us into shape. But it’s been lots of work.

The entire cast has sacrificed every single weekend of this semester to rehearse. After spending about 10 hours together in a day, even we can get a little sassy. We have finally approached the appropriately deemed “Hell Week” (aka opening week) and our favorite slogan has become more crucial than ever.

Without giving away the entire plot (because you’ll want to find out for yourself), Once Upon a Mattress is a much funnier version of the classic Princess and the Pea story. While Prince Dauntless waits for a princess who can satisfy his mother’s impossible expectations, no one in the kingdom is allowed to marry. Princess after princess fails the Queen’s absurd tests.

But one princess, Winnifred the Woe-Be-Gone, decides to take matters into her own hands. She is so anxious and so determined to marry the prince that instead of waiting for the drawbridge to lower to enter the kingdom, she jumps in and swims the moat. And from the beginning, she is both loved by the prince and the people and hated by the Queen for this.

Why? Because she swam the moat. Because she knew what she wanted and she went for it. She did not wait to be walked into the kingdom. She did not stand politely by while the Queen interrogated her. She stepped right up and claimed her dreams, despite what everyone thought of her. The most amazing thing to me is that she does so with complete and total love and kindness. The reason the kingdom’s initial aversion to her so quickly changed to adoration is because she was so pure of heart.

We coined “Swim the Moat” from the very beginning, because that’s exactly what we have aimed to do for this show. We have worked to achieve greatness. We have stayed at the BCM from 5pm-1am every night this week running the show over and over again because we know that what we put into it is what we will get out of it. Sure, we all have class and work all day before. And yes, most of us go home and burn the candle a few hours more to get our homework done. But we are willing because we want to burn out bright this weekend.

We hope that our heart is pure as well. You don’t have to spend much time with this cast to see that we all love attention. And to see that everyone has amazing talent to offer. But we are here only because God has gifted us with a purpose. And our purpose is to spread the Gospel to the world. And if that’s not a reason to swim the moat, then I don’t know what is.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” – Colossians 3:23

We are committed to swimming the moat this weekend so that our very own students can cross the oceans and bring the Gospel to other nations.

This is a phrase that I intend to hold onto for a very long time. It is so easy to give up on dreams and goals and plans when life gets busy or we get disappointed or things don’t turn out as we imagined. Life is tough. Relationships are hard work. Jobs are hard to come by. Dreams don’t just come true because we want them to. We don’t get to where we want to go by waiting for life to take us there. We take our life there. And we will be both loved and hated for it. Loved by those who are inspired to jump in. And hated by those who are waiting for the drawbridge.

We must not wait for the drawbridges in life to lower. It’s time to jump in and swim the moat. Find a purpose and make it happen.

 

PLUG: Please support us by coming to see the show this weekend! We have worked very hard and we hope it’s not wasted! This show is so funny and great, you will not be disappointed. Check out this flyer for details about ordering your ticket and call in today!