I read about you. 

When I read that you are a masterpiece, I knew you were a one of a kind.  I was told that the creator of you, this masterpiece calls you wonderful and beautiful and has so many precious thoughts toward you that they outnumber the grains of sand on earth!  When I discovered all of this about you, I knew you were uniquely you!  One of a kind.  Obviously planned for, brought into this world at just this time and for a purpose.   Because these words are true for each of us, I wonder why we try to compare ourselves.  Imagine all of us masterpieces lined up being judged by other masterpieces.  Why of course each one of us thinks we are the only real masterpiece.  The judging and comparisons begin and before long we are all trying to change the original works of art into something they were never created to be.  In the art world, that would be called distortion.

Let’s reason together for a minute.  Because we are each unique, why do we try to change the masterpiece that we are? Yeah, it’s a rhetorical question.  As I reason through the “why” of my own changes, I realize I do it because I either don’t like the masterpiece that I am, or I want to be more like someone else’s masterpiece.  I can change my hair color, eye color, nose, chin, add/subtract body parts and on my list could go.  In my mind, I begin creating my own standard for wonderful and beautiful.  How about you?

I also read that you and I are known intimately and thoroughly by our creator in a hands-on knitting us in our mother’s womb kind of way.  With a knit here and the stroke of a brush there we are beautifully and wonderfully made.  While the genes of our parents determine many things about us, we are intentionally created with our own DNA.  This is amazing!

Maybe now is a good time to reason over this “creator” theory.  In my personal research and reasoning, there is no way we just happen and with no rhyme or reason for how we are who and what we are.  Everything I’ve read about the creator and about us supports what I’ve already shared.  In accepting what I’ve read about us, I’ve had to change my thinking about myself and about you. It’s not easy because just like you I’m daily bombarded with distortions.  Lies really.  I admit these lies and distortions are easy to believe because most of the time I want them.  I really want to be different than I am.  I want to repaint myself or at the very least change the picture of me to fit what I want.  But what about what the creator wants and intended?  What if I took more time to learn about what my creator said about me, my purpose, and what were the intentions of my creator when creating me, this masterpiece?  I have found when I do this, I have two choices.  Believe what has been written and recorded about me or call it hogwash and remake myself to fit what I think is best for me. 

I propose the world would be a much better place if we would accept and live by what the creator says about us and others.  If we could only learn to love ourselves as we’ve been created and learn to love others as they’ve been created, we’d have greater clarity on the root of our identity crises, whose lives matter, and so on.  If we could only accept that these few truths, I’ve shared are not relative but absolute, I think we’d want to know more because there is so much more to know.  And each beautiful truth brings greater purpose to our lives.  I admit it doesn’t always seem beautiful at first because I want what I want.  I’ve convinced myself that truth is relative, and I like it that way.  Often, I don’t want to know more about my creator because that might mean I’d have to conform my thinking in a direction I do not want to go.  Are you with me?

But what if…  What if in all of our distortions we are missing the real meaning and purpose of our lives?  What if in all our conceived physical flaws, internal conflicts, and ingrained distortions, we realize and accept we are a masterpiece not to be changed, conformed, or distorted?  What if the creator has a plan and purpose for our lives that far exceeds anything we can imagine and think for ourselves?  Oh, I know how hard and even painful it can be to give up our hopes and dreams and how we envision our lives should be and go.  But what if these are a distortion of what should and can be?  What if we are perfect as we are and the creator’s plans are more and better than our wildest dreams?