Today an 8 year old said to a almost 9 year old, ” you must be 8 not 9 to be in that grade.” The light in the 9 year old’s eyes dimmed she didn’t meet her friend’s standards. I didn’t have the right words to say but really age only matters when you’re 8 or 9 because when you grow up you rarely ever just associate with people your own age. I heard another little girl say, “i can’t do art or crafts or color or anything!” I looked at her perfectly colored picture, ” who colored that?” I asked.
“I did” She replied. “And it’s terrible?” I asked. “Yes.” she replied. She was confident but only in her assumed failure.
Gun shy to try again, I encouraged him to look for a new job. Try something new. The last time didn’t go so well he admitted. It was intimidating to think he might not be good enough again.
She had worked so hard on her masterpiece but a person very important to her shrugged off the hard work and focused on the insignificant the part that didn’t matter or add value to her art work and that is what she began to focus on too.
A child in their innocence says to another child with a visible disability I feel sorry for you.
A bully in the schoolyard or in the workplace, looks to find the next victim the one who appears to be vulnerable that won’t be able to escape their taunts and words and hits to the soul if not to the face. And they are all the same. Looking at themselves, or looking at others. Declaring that they are Not good enough. Substandard, Failure, Less than.
And they are not aware that they have been lied to, deceived and bought into the culture that does not know grace or unconditional love or joy selfless giving.
They have failed but only in that they have failed to know the truth. That truth is simple but for some reason hard to accept. That simple truth is they are loved with an everlasting love. They are loved despite their successes and despite their failures. They were loved at their worse (that is when He died for them) and He does not love them more when they are at their best. The truth that allows for grace and forgiveness and selfless sacrifice because it has and is all of these things. A truth that will indeed set them free.