You Are Special

“Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity, and power is false identity- an illusion! Loudly and clearly he says: ‘You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God.’ Henri Nouwen- Here and Now

In the last few weeks I have become very familiar with the book You Are Special by Max Lucado because I have read it both with the teachers at our training and with my small group. For those of you who are not familiar with this book, it is about a village of wooden people who were all made by the same woodcarver, Eli. Everyday these wooden people move about giving each other stars (good) and dots (bad) according to their talents, beauty, and gifts or the lack there of. The main character, Punchinello, was covered in dots because he could not do any of the things that earned stars. Because of the bad marks he had been given he began to believe that he was not a good wooden person. However, one day he met a wooden person who had no marks and she told him to go and see the woodcarver. Punchinello finds out that Eli thinks he is very special and that he should not care what the other wooden people think. The moral of this story is that we too are special and we should always be looking to our heavenly Father to tell us who we are.

No matter what town, village, or country we live in we are all human. Just like the wooden people in this book we move about giving one another stickers with our words and actions. We try to tell others who they are and we also begin to believe ourselves that we are who the world tells us we are. We fall into traps and then stoop to finding our identity in success, popularity, and power. But just as the quote above says, Christ came to announce that we are children of God and that our identity should be found in Him alone. God tells us He loves us no matter what and that we are all very special. It doesn’t matter if we are extremely successful or beautiful by the world’s standards or possess lots of wonderful things. God’s love for us never changes. I enjoyed seeing my friends here relate to this book just as much as I do and now we even go around telling one another that we are special because God made us and we are His.
Here I am reading the book to my small group.

The girls made a mirror decoration that will remind them they are special every time they look in the mirror.

Here is one of the girls telling the story to her siblings using the book to show pictures.