God's Masterpiece
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:13
Imagine that you are going to give someone a project you have been working on. It could be a painting or a drawing or a scrapbook or something you have built- something creative that you have put together with your own hands. You’ve made sure every detail is exactly the way you think it should be… you’re so excited about this gift. This is the best gift ever!
And then, you give it to them. And instead of being so excited about it, they start to critique it. They point out what they don’t like about it, and compare it to someone else’s project. Sometimes they point out things they like about it, but for the most part, they just talk about what they don’t like about it.
Not the reaction you expected, huh? You wanted them to be thrilled! You were thrilled with it, weren’t you? You had put it together exactly the way you thought it would be best. You thought it was great! Perfect actually! What are they thinking putting it down?
But wait… this verse says that God knit us together. It continues to say that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. In Ephesians 2, we are called God’s workmanship. In Genesis we read that God created man in His own image! And at the end of the day, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
God created each of us as a gift to us. He gave us life and breath, and He handcrafted the bodies that we live in and saw that it was good! And yet, we do a terrific job of putting ourselves down. It seems, especially as girls, that all we can focus on is the stuff we don’t like about ourselves - “My hair is too straight.” “My hair is too frizzy.” “I have too many freckles.” “My feet are HUGE.” Why do we act like that? God was excited about what he made us to be, and all we can do is talk about how terrible we are.
This past summer, one of the other Group Leaders had us all go around in a circle one day and say one thing that we loved about ourselves physically. It felt so weird at first, because no one is used to talking about the good about themselves. All we see is the negative. But it was SO great! We all ended up spending the afternoon agreeing with each other and encouraging each other about how great the other one was. It didn’t turn into a “let’s talk about how perfect we are party” - it turned into an afternoon of encouragement and love, and everyone walked away smiling and feeling good!
So give yourself a break! Next time you look in the mirror and see only bad things, stop and remind yourself of the good things too! Remind yourself that God was thrilled when He made you, and He wants you to be just as thrilled too!
Remind yourself that He gave you a body to do great things with, not to look down upon. Give yourself a mental hug and then get out there and show everyone how great you really are! Because I promise you, when people look at you, they don’t see the bad things you see; they see one of God’s masterpieces.