We are now in the liturgical season after Pentecost called Ordinary Time. This season stretches all the way until the first Sunday of Advent, which this year is December 3. Since this season is six months long, instead of one theme for whole season, we will have a theme for each month. Since we are entering the season of fun, a.k.a., summer, something fun for me are children’s books. I never grew out of children’s and Young Adult books. They tend to be more playful and more succinct than many adult books. These authors tell a tighter story because they know they don’t have their reader’s attention span for very long. At the same time, some of my favorite children and YA books deal with heavy themes.
One of my favorite children’s books related to faith is “You Are Special” by Max Lucado. I bought this book, the board book version, sometime in college, not long after it came out. The Wemmicks are a wooden people who were created by a carpenter named Eli in a variety of sizes and shapes. They give gold stars to those with perfect paint or obvious talents and gray dots to those with rough wood or who are just plain ordinary. Punchinello is covered in gray dots because he messes up a lot when he tries to do something great and then sounds silly when he tries to explain why he messed up. His self-worth is tied to these gray dots and absence of gold stars. One day he meets a Wemmick with no dots or stars because even though people try to give them to her, they don’t stick. Punchinello is curious. She tells him it’s because she spends time each day with Eli. Punchinello decides to go see Eli, too, and is surprised by his warm welcome. Eli says that he doesn’t care what other Wemmicks think about Punchinello; what they think about his looks and his talents doesn’t matter. All that matters is what the creator thinks, and Eli thinks Punchinello is special, because Eli created him. The stars and the dots only stick if you let them.
That is my favorite line: the stars and the dots only stick if they matter to you. The good things and the bad things people say about you don’t have to matter. You can brush them off. Easier said than done, I know. I can’t find the source, but I remember hearing (or reading) the advice to not believe your own press clippings. The press clippings refer to the reviews of your work, both good and bad, and the recommendation is to not ingest them, don’t internalize them. Whether it was high praise or if the critics panned your work, they do not determine your self-worth. They can boost or shake your confidence, but they do not mean that you are not enough or that you are too much. You are always just right. You are loved and you are special, just as you are.
The stars and the dots both highlight external qualities, the kind of wood you’re made from, what shape it is, what condition it’s in, what abilities you can do with it. These are all superficial aspects, none of which really matter. What matters is that God loves you, unconditionally. There are no dots or stars in God’s rating system; God doesn’t have a rating system. And the world’s rating system does not affect your self-worth. God loves you and thinks you are special, because you belong to God.