Clarification

Beautiful

I feel guilty admitting that when I walked into the KidStuff room last Sunday morning, what brought a big smile to my face was not the children, but a book that I saw lying on the table: Max Lucado’s (kind of) new book, Tallest of Smalls.

I also feel guilty admitting that when I asked the kids if they wanted me to read it to them and they said no, I read it to them anyway. Multiple times. And when they told me they wanted to read the book about the moon, I kept reading Tallest of Smalls. And even when all the children had walked away because they didn’t want to read that book, I sat there and just read it to myself. But hey, I redeemed myself later by reading that ridiculous moon book about twenty times during snack time.

Max Lucado’s the one who wrote the book You Are Special, and Tallest of Smalls isn’t really that different. Instead of stars and dots and Punchinello, there are stilts and the ‘cool crowd’ and Ollie. And the other difference is that instead of a headless creator telling Punchinello that he’s special, Jesus himself walks with Ollie and tells him that he is His precious creation.

There was a page in the book that I read over and over again where Jesus says to Ollie:

“You’re precious my Ollie,

Not too short or too small,

I made you remember,

You’re mine after all”

I think I almost have something of a love/hate relationship with those words. You are beautiful. You are special. You matter. You are important. Those words are said so often to everyone that you’d think people would get it by now. That you are beautiful because you are God’s wonderful creation and He loves you. That God created you with gifts and talents specifically for you, and He has a beautiful purpose for you. Why don’t you get it yet?

And I think about myself sitting in that tiny chair at the KidStuff table, children running and screaming around me. I’m staring at the cartoon Jesus, tears in my eyes, asking myself, why don’t you get it yet?

I am thankful that God has placed people around me who are passionate about helping those in need, and I’m thankful that I have been able to provide resources and support in helping my friends carry out the desire to serve God in that way. But for me personally, I have to admit that I’ve never felt like I had a heart for the homeless.

But I think they have a heart for me.

Like Jose, who gave Kathy and me a hug and asked if he could be our boyfriend. And Malachi who taught us how to bump elbows Louisiana style and told us we really were good people. And Crystal who told us we were beautiful, inside and out, and said one day she would teach us to cook authentic Italian food. And Sodapop who said we were two beautiful girls.

I’m not going to try to make some profound statement about how every time I talk to the homeless I receive much more than I had to offer. And I’m not trying to say that going to talk to homeless people was a divine appointment for me to come to the epiphany that God thinks I’m beautiful. To me, it’s simpler than that.

Crystal has kids a little older than us, and I like to think that she gave us that genuine smile and told us over and over again that we were beautiful, inside and out, she meant it.

Struggling to listen to either God’s truth or Satan’s lies. I didn’t write this to say that I’ve dealt with this, found a cure, and now I’m here to share what I’ve learned. Hah. Definitely not. It’s about how this is something I struggle with - but it’s okay.

I know what my identity is. And I know who I belong to. And that’s really all I need to know.