Do You Consider Yourself a Masterpiece?

Slightly interesting fact about me: I really like to write poetry. I don't get to do it as often as I'd like, and I'm no Robert Frost, but there's just something about making words come together that gets me really excited. I especially like it when I feel like I've written something that will brighten someone's day and remind them of how ridiculously loved they are. One poem that reminds me of this is Psalm 139, which famously states: "For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well" (Psalm 139:13-14). So, I figured I'd try to incorporate this truth into a poem of my own. It's intended to be more of a spoken word thing, but since no one wants to see a video of me yelling at them, the script itself is just going to have to work. I really hope it makes you smile!

Do you consider yourself a masterpiece?

Because you know,

We live in a world where it’s easy to feel like a stick figure scribbled on scrap paper

With stubby, broken crayons,

That not even a child will pick up because the colors just aren’t

“Pretty enough.”

 

Because somehow,

We’ve all fallen captive to the presupposition

That the “best art” has to be made out of the “best stuff,”

And that only an intricate physique painted delicately on a sterile white canvas

With paint so pungent, and so bright that its pigments have to be diluted with water

Is worthy of being plastered onto the walls that we build

To detain, to disdain, to disguise, and to deprive ourselves

Of the universe that lies beyond the interior

Because we’ve decided that no one out there in the vastness

Would stand up at an auction and scream over the hushed murmur of the other bidders

Just to hold us in their soft hands and whisper

“Mine.”

 

But then, I look at you,

And I realize,

We’re wrong.

 

Because you, my dear

Are the best art,

The kind of masterpiece that deserves to be on exhibition under the fluorescent lights of an uptown gallery,

To be admired by the glimmering gazes of passersby,

Who stand in awe of the way the colors run together in all the right places brushstroke by brilliant brushstroke,

And to finally be bought at a price of nothing less than a thousand gold coins

Of love and gentleness,

To be emblazoned above the crackling embers of a warm fireplace,

In a home with transparent walls

In a universe of your very own.

 

But yet somewhere in the blurred lines between

Beauty and brokenness,

I’ve lost sight of what the “best stuff”

Really is, and I’m honestly not sure that I know anymore,

But I do know that whatever you’re made of is pretty spectacular,

Like the shimmering dust of the earth that glistens on your bare feet,

And the splendid sunshine that brings out the streaks in your hair,

And the way your soft voice breaks the earsplitting silence,

And the music that exudes from your sympathetic soul.

 

And maybe you’re made of some things that you like to conceal,

To confine to the sketches crumpled up under your bed because you didn’t want to call them art,

Like the scar you got when you stepped on a rock while trying to dance in a thunderstorm,

And the icy rain that falls from your eyes and sometimes blurs your vision when you drive,

And the way you still wake up with cold sweat in the middle of the night because you could never quite kill the monsters in the closet, 

And the shards of glass, sitting in your soul, that the music couldn’t replace when the world handed you heartbreak.

 

But I don’t care if it isn’t always the “best stuff,” or the “brightest paint,”

Fight through the cobwebs festering under your bed, take out those sketches,

And tattoo those flaws on your sun-kissed skin,

Because you, my darling,

Are fearfully, and wonderfully made,

Knitted together with the silvery threads of

Beauty and brokenness,

Woven into the greatest mess of a masterpiece,

The kind that isn’t yet complete.

 

And so if you’re ever asked to draw a self-portrait

And you scribble a stick figure on scrap paper

With stubby, broken crayons

That come in colors you just don’t think are

"Pretty enough,”

Then I will proudly plaster it over the cracks in my crumbling walls,

But then I will sit down at my cluttered desk and write you a poem to say

“You are so much more.”

You are so much more than the person the world will make you out to be, and you better not forget it.

When Windows Break

     “There’s a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

~ Leonard Cohen

 

Do you ever wish that everything was made of plexiglass, that material that won’t break no matter how hard outside forces beat upon it? Do you ever wish that no storm, no matter how brutal, could shatter the windows by which you see the world, and by which the world sees you? Do you ever wish that you were as whole on the inside as you act on the outside- that you could lift the opaque shutter that you have so carefully garbed yourself with so that a warm, radiant light could cascade in?

 



 

It seems as though our society has an impenetrable, perhaps even unbreakable, fear of brokenness. We live our day to day lives as if we can simply hide behind a shade of immaculate wholeness- because what would happen if people could see beyond the beloved façade? What would happen if people could see inside the gaping holes that make us who we are, if they could see the jagged shards of glass crumbling to the ground in hopelessness? Somehow, we put ourselves under the suffocating impression that we’re the only ones, the only ones who have something missing, the only ones who are crumbled and so seemingly irreparable. Somehow, everyone else has it all together.

 

I am a victim of this mindset, and it’s not just something that lingers in my past. I am a professional in the business of putting up a front. I smile way too much, even when I’m not actually happy. I’m always “Fantastic” every time someone asks because I feel like it’s expected of me. I hate admitting that I need help as I try so fiercely to help those around me. A passerby may look at the quiet, simple shutter I have drawn and see tranquility without knowledge of the angry tornado that has blown through. Behind the shutter, dusty cobwebs fester. More glass falls. No light comes in. No light goes out. Just darkness. Painfully comfortable darkness. Yet somehow, I am blinded to it. It looms over everything I say and do- even with God. I’ll plead on behalf of everyone else under the sun- and when it comes to the end of my lukewarm prayers? “Oh, yeah. I’m fine God. Peachy, really.” As if I could fool the one who has numbered the very hairs on my head. As if He doesn’t know the prideful, guilty condition of my heart.

 



 

But He does. David, a biblical king who was no stranger to brokenness, perhaps expresses this better than anyone. In an epiphany of God’s incredible omniscience, he cries out: “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me . . . I can never escape your spirit! I can never flee your presence!” (Psalm 139:1,7) We can’t play games with God. He isn’t impressed with our false expressions of wholeness. He’s like that one friend who always knows when we’re lying. And something tells me God really doesn’t appreciate being lied to.

 

He despises a deceitful tongue. But you know what He doesn’t despise? A broken spirit. Take a look at what David says in Psalm 51 as He laments before God with fresh authenticity: “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it. You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, God, you will not despise.” It is in our times of greatest despair that God longs to heal us with the complete sufficiency of Himself. He knows our needs and our inequities. He isn’t the arrogant man who abhors the rugged mess of a broken window. He’s the pesky dove who lands on the windowsill and longs to come inside.  God isn’t afraid of what you have hidden behind a shutter of durability. There’s a reason He didn’t make you out of plexiglass. He made you out of weak, fragile human flesh- not so that you feel broken and beaten down, but so that you feel broken and lifted up. Because at the end of the day, He looks at the heaping pile of shattered glass that you have tried so hard to cover up and says, “Wow. I made that. And I love it so, so much.”

 

It’s okay to admit that you don’t have it all together. It’s okay to express your fears, your doubts, and your weaknesses. It’s okay to fall on your knees and cry out to God in helpless desperation. Slowly but surely, the shutter will be lifted. A luminescent glow will pierce through the void left by your beautiful brokenness. With this glow, you will be rescued from the shadows of darkness. You will be freed from your blindness. You will see that you aren’t the only one; you never were. God will take all of the fragments that you’ve been struggling to put together into His own hands. He’ll help you find wholeness.

 

But personally? I think He’ll leave a small crack so that His divine light might always find its way through.

 





The Giant of Comparison

* This post is based off of an incredible sermon I heard about a year ago by Dave Edwards. You can listen to it here: (Even if you’ve never listened to a sermon before, I seriously recommend it. Seriously.) http://www.longhollow.com/messages/series/9?message=368&media=video

 

“And we seemed to ourselves as grasshoppers, and so we became to them.” ~ Numbers 13:33

 

 

          Comparison is something I struggle with. A lot. It permeates virtually every aspect of my life- academically, physically, relationally, and spiritually- and threatens to tear me apart The idea that “Well, I’m not as bad as so-and-so, but I’ll never be anywhere near as good as so-and-so” has probably separated me from God more than any other sin ever could. That’s right- I called it a sin. Because at the end of the day, comparison is looking God in the face and saying, “Hey, the person you created me to be isn’t good enough. I think you made a mistake.” I’ve learned that Satan will employ this mentality to do whatever it takes to convince you that you’re not good enough. It becomes this giant that we’re convinced we will never conquer. And there comes a time when we have to look this giant in the eyes and say “no more.”

 

          The giant of comparison has swept down and suffocated me in his unrelenting grasp. He has held me up to the sky and shown me that I am nothing more than a speck in its vastness. He has told me that my happiness must come from an external source- from finding favor with a loved one, from achieving a certain social status, or from reaching perfection. He has lifted me to meet the eyes of other giants, and he has distorted my perception of them. He has caused me to undermine my own accomplishments. To view them as insufficient. He has plagued me with lies and degradations that leave me in utter darkness. He has taken the earnest desires of my heart and ripped them into shreds. He has taken the remaining fragments and crushed them under his feet. He has tricked me into believing that my worldly weaknesses are not made strong in the greatness of my God and the sacrifice of my savior. He makes sure that I am obsessed with the faults of my past and the uncertainties of my future. He clenches me so tightly that any attempts to grovel free only result in further constriction. I have gone to great lengths to satiate the hunger of this giant. I have hidden behind a mask of makeup and appearance because he has defined me in terms of the number on a scale and the image in a panel of glass. I have kept from establishing certain relationships because he has told me that I am worthless in inferior eyes. I have locked my darkest secrets and inquiries behind a door of shame under the assumption that those around me have it all figured out. I have longed for the approval of man because the giant of comparison has denied me approval of self. I have withheld my potential in fear that it will linger in the shadows of another. I have questioned the impact that I am capable of having on an immense universe because the giant of comparison has caused me to discount my uniqueness and the divine plan behind it. I have lived for too long believing that life is a race is about competing, not completing.

 

 

                                                                                     

 

              “And so was we became grasshoppers in our own sight . . . so we became unto them.” This verse comes at a very pivotal point in scripture. The Israelites have come from years of torment and slavery in Egypt, and after an immense struggle, they have reached the promise land. The land of flowing rivers of milk and honey. The land of freedom.

 

             But . . . they don’t go in. Why? Comparison. They see these giants, and they compare themselves to them. They actually want to go back to Egypt. The land of pain and darkness. Because evidently, they know something God doesn’t. They don’t trust Him, and the power of His hand over them. And until they do trust Him, they miss out on all of the incredible things He had in store.  

 

            So what about you? How has comparison prevented you from getting the most out of life? Maybe this whole thing is new to you. Maybe you’ve lived your entire life believing a lie- the lie that God could never love you, could never deliver you from your sin, could never shine light into your darkness. In the cold, dim place of that lie, God’s word ignites a candle of hope: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I  have summoned you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). Or maybe you’ve been a Christian for a while now, but you feel dead in your faith. The plans God has for you aren’t as special as the ones He has for anyone else. But you are the only one who can fulfill those plans. I can’t. The most religious person you can think of can’t. The person with the most money can’t. But you can. Take heart in this: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust Him and He will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun” (Psalms 37:5-6).

 

            Yes, when we writhe free from the grasp of the giant of comparison, the fall that ensues does hurt. But we don’t land in the barren desert. We find our place in the promise land.