When I was a child I remembered reading this book about little wooden people who were created by this carpenter, and for some reason all of the little wooden people had stars and dots and they would put them on each other. I remember that the story had a feel good ending, and was some how tied to God, but that was all I remembered about this book.
Jump forward to present time…
Training camp last week rocked my world. I saw things I hardly believed in, and experienced a level of God I didn't even know possible. Although I would love to tell you all about the entire camp, that would take page after page so I will narrow my experience to how God worked in my heart, and continues to work in me now that I am home.
Have you ever had a problem that you thought was one thing but ended up being something completely different?
You thought you had a headache from the yelling children, but it turns out it was from the headband that was too tight.
You thought your car was broken, but turns out you were really only out of gas.
You thought you couldn't trust your boyfriend, but really it was just insecurities carried over from a past relationship.
This last week I went into training camp knowing that I had problems, but having a pretty good understanding of what they were. I knew that I struggled with low self-esteem, anger, and low self worth. Now that I knew where my problems lay I should be able to deal with them right away. Step 1 was figuring out where my problems are stemming from. Check! I had a whole list of wrongs that had been done to me so now i could move on to being fixed right?
wrong.
Problems that we have I am coming to realize sometimes seem to be stemming from one thing, can actually be caused by things that we had never even considered before.
One night at training camp our amazing speaker Ron Walborn (seriously go look him up, he is awesome) started talking about mourning. He said that we could never really move from one phase of our lives to the next if we have not properly mourned for our loses, wether that be a lost loved one, the loss of our childhood, or the loss of innocence. We have all lost something in our lives, and unless we are properly able to deal with those loses, we can never go into the next stage of our lives. Our past problems and hurts will start popping up all around us, in ways we don't expect and follow us around until we face them.
That message caught me, and it caught me hard. I have lost a lot of things in my past worth mourning, but I have never mourned over any of it. I considered myself strong for not crying over my hurts, not reacting whenever I took a blow. In reality I wasn't strong, I was running. I was running from dealing with my losses.
Ron was in the middle of speaking, when next thing I know I was bawling. Face in my lap, hands over my eyes, sobbing. I was crying for me growing up too fast, crying for a broken family, crying for my loss of safety. I was mourning 20 years worth of hurts, and it was overwhelming.
What was interesting however was that the things that I thought I would be mourning over most were only passing thoughts. The hurts that were so unbelievably deep were unexpected and electrifying. I had been told my whole life through actions and through words that I was:
Unworthy
Unvalued
Unloved
Unclean
Ugly
Rejected
I heard these words over and over again in my memories and in my head as I mourned my past. when all of a sudden I hear another voice. One loving and kind. One whispering through the darkness giving me a new identity.
Speaking words of life into me this voice told me that i was:
Unbelievably worthy
Valued beyond belief
Loved more then I could ever comprehend
Beautifully created exactly as I am
An innocent child
Accepted and sought after
My tears then turned from tears of loss, to tears of thankfulness.
This is how my Father sees me. I have been told my entire life all these lies about who I am, and God whispered to me that night my true identity found in Him. He told me who I am as his child. He said the way I view myself is through so many webbed lies it was almost impossible to see the light, see the truth of who I really am. His Beautiful daughter who was fearfully and wonderfully made.
That night my Identity was shaken, and a new one was placed. One rooted in truth, and reaffirmed by the word.
I'm not going to lie to you all and tell you that I came home with an entirely different outlook on who I am. When your identity has been seeded in lies for so long its not something you can just shake off over night. It takes work. Lots of work. But like I said before; step one is knowing the problem. I am able to rebuke the lies of rejection and being unworthy as they are spoken over me, and instead praise the Lord for who He says I am. Hopefully one day I will be able to see myself as the Father sees me, Beautiful and worthy, an innocent child of the most high.
Now as for how the book I mentioned above comes into play. I was sitting on my couch when all of a sudden I had had this desire out of nowhere to try and find that book from my childhood. After searching for about an hour I found out the book was called "You are Special" by Max Lucado.
This book is about this woodcarver Eli, and the society of wooden people he created called Wemmicks. Wemmicks spend their days placing stickers on one another: those who were appreciated and loved received yellow "stars", those who were not would get gray "dots". there was one Wemmick named Punchinello who had no stars, and was covered in dots. He thought that, because of his gray dots, he was worthless. Until, one day, he meets a Wemmick called Lucia, who had no stars or dots. She tells Punchinello that if he goes to see Eli he could have no dots or stars just like her.
The part of the story that really gets to me is when Punchinello went to see Eli and apologized to him for having so many dots, and this is what Eli said, and how the story ended.
"Oh, you don't have to defend yourself to me, child. I don't care what the other Wemmicks think."
"You don't?"
"No, and you shouldn't either. Who are they to give stars or dots? They are Wemmicks just like you. What they think doesn't matter, Punchinello. All that matters is what I think. And I think you are pretty special."
Punchinello laughed. "Me, special? Why? I can't walk fast. I can't jump. My paint is peeling. Why do I matter to you?" Eli looked at Punchinello, put his hands on those small wooden shoulders, and spoke very slowly. "Because you are mine. That's why you matter to me."
Punchinello had never had anyone look at him like this – much less his maker. He didn't know what to say.
"Every day I've been hoping you'd come", Eli explained.
"I came because I met someone who had no marks," said Punchinello,
"I know. She told me about you."
"Why don't the stickers stay on her?"
The maker spoke softly.
"Because she has decided that what I think is more important than what they think. The stickers only stick if you let them."
"What?"
"The stickers only stick if they matter to you. The more you trust my love, the less you care about their stickers."
"I'm not sure I understand."
Eli smiled. "You will, but it will take time. You've got a lot of marks. For now, just come to see me every day and let me remind you how much I care." Eli lifted Punchinello off the bench and set him on the ground.
"Remember," Eli said as the Wemmick walked out the door, "you are special because I made you. And I don t make mistakes."
Punchinello did not stop, but in his heart he thought, I think he really means it.
And when he did, a dot fell to the ground.
It's funny how a child's book from your past can relate so perfectly to your present.
