One of the Wemmicks is different though. Her name is Lucia. She has no stars or dots on her. It wasn't that people didn't try to give her stickers; it was just that the stickers wouldn't stick, but would fall off. What made her different? Well, every day she would go and visit her maker, Eli, the woodcarver and every day when she would leave the stickers would fall away until over time, they wouldn't even stick at all. Why didn't the sticker stick? 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. The stickers only stick if they matter to you. The more you trust my love, the less you care about their stickers... Just come and see me every day and let me remind you how much I care. Remember, you are special because I made you, And I don't make mistakes."
Are you tired of the dots and stars? Do you look at yourself in the mirror and count the stickers, good and bad, that others have stuck on you? I like this story, because it doesn't focus on the people doing the sticking. It doesn't attempt to teach the community to stop the sticker placing. We all do it, we all succumb to it. We can spin our wheels trying not to care what others think. But like the Wemmecks it is our nature. Instead this story focuses our energy on how to live a life where what God thinks of us is all that matters. That's when the stickers can't stick. How do we live this life? By spending time with our maker. Only then can we hear what HE thinks of us over the roar of the crowd. When we spend time with him, the stickers fall off. It doesn't happen immediately, it takes many days, and months of time with Him. But if we spend time daily with our God, we too will be stickerless. I believe it is then that we can truly reflect and glow with the light of Christ because we won't have all those stickers in the way.
As we enter our summer, for many women, this means our regularly scheduled activities are on hold. With little to anchor our days, with vacations and kids underfoot, it will be easy to forget to set aside time with our Maker. Yet how freeing and releasing it would be if our summer is rich with time in God's word. How exciting our fall will be as a community of Christian women if we are a group that is like Lucia, where the stickers just can't stick anymore. Let's encourage each other to be in the word this summer. Let's seek to be a community who releases women to be true to their Maker and His desire for their lives. Let's get excited with each other as we watch those stickers fall away because we are a group who seeks after God, spending time in His word, in prayer and in listening to His kind words of affirmation. As He whispers softly to us "You are special because I made you. And I don't make mistakes.
I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass, that you forget the Lord your Maker who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth...?
Isaiah 51:12,13
