This is what my family calls a coal dollar. They are pretty rare but since my father is a coal miner we have tons sitting around the house. Sometimes I look at it and think of how much care God put into the smallest details of His creation—like this coal dollar. I've been creating lately, not much, a piece of art here, some writing there. Once in a while you'll even get a song out of me. As I look at what I've created I think of how much I adore my handiwork. Maybe some would call it pride, but I like to think that it is God's creative attribute shining through me. Like when you're uncovering a beautiful rock from the ground and you start to see fragments and pieces of beautiful color through the mud.
We are created in His image, aren't we? God, the most beautiful artifact of all, has created us, little pebbles, in His image. He created us so that we would communicate His biggest and deepest attributes to the world: like creativity, love, kindness, understanding, mercy and grace. Over and over we see and hear that God loves His creation. But suddenly I find myself drawn to the feelings I get about my creations. I love them. I'm proud of them even if they have quirks and blemishes. This, to me, is the image of our God's love for us.
Though my love is far from perfect, His love is perfect through and through. And because He created us, He loves us. Because He loves us, He brings us back to Him and draws near to us. Next time you feel like you are alone or blemished remember these two things.
1. You aren’t alone, because God created you in a way so that you can relate to Him through your likeness to Him. The reason He did that was so that when you do feel alone or distant, you can come back to your Father in Heaven who so greatly wants to embrace His children in His arms. Along with God, you are in a world full of other blemished and broken pebbles who feel the same way you do in some shape or fashion.
2. Yes, you are blemished, but God created you knowing that you would be exactly who you are, and He still loves you. Own your blemishes. Just like you love your creations that are not perfect, God loves you.
God put the smallest and most minute details into all of His creation. Humans, the ones created in the image of the Creator, have the most complex and detailed personalities and traits. Be confident that God created you to be who you are, and that He takes pleasure in every ounce of your being. In Psalm 139:13-14 it says, "You formed my inward parts you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works my soul knows it very well." God made us to be who we are, and as soon as we can embrace that, we can start to experience His love in new ways and become more like Him.
