KIDS TALK ABOUT GOD
How can I accept the way I look?
By Carey Kinsolving and friends
(Part One of Three)
“God wanted me to look like my mom, but my daddy wanted me to look like him. I guess God knows best,” says Wesley, 5.
Well, we don’t know what dad looks like, but we’re certain God knows best.
Sharkmen, 6, has a different perspective: “God made me handsome just like my dad, and I am very happy about it.” Dad must be happy, too.
Sharkmen is not the only confident kid. Brady, 6, says, “Man, God made me great! I can run very fast, too.”
Brady, you may need all that speed if you go around announcing how great you are.
“God likes curly hair because not everyone has it,” says Allison, 5.
It’s easy to focus on what we don’t have instead of what God has given us. Have you noticed how many people with curly hair want it straight and vice versa? Hair stylists notice because it helps pay their bills.
“Lots of people do not have freckles,” says Ashley, 7. “They don’t know what they are missing.”
Tyler, 6, gave the shortest answer as to how we can accept our appearance when he wrote, “Paint.”
I’m sure Tyler is referring to the cosmetic industry. Someone once said, “If the barn needs painting, paint it.”
While we’re on the subject of beauty, Corrie, 6, says, “If God didn’t make us pretty, why does everyone say how pretty I am?”
Whether or not people tell you that you’re beautiful, Aubree, 5, has a simple two-word tip that can help everyone with their appearance: “Take baths.”
And now, the big question, “Why do we look different from each other?” Max, 5, says, “God made us look different so he knows who we are.”
I see our appearance is like an ID card.
“I can learn to accept my appearance by not comparing myself to other people,” says Houston, 10. “I can also learn to accept my appearance by thinking, ‘We are the clay, and God is the potter’ and ‘Hasn’t the potter power over the clay?’” (Romans 9:20-21).
Good thinking, Houston. Bible thinking is always good thinking because it gives us the view from above, and that view puts us into a large orbit. We see ourselves properly related to God.
Comparing ourselves with people imprisons us in a tiny world.
When we realize that the same potter who molded the universe molded us, it frees us to accept our appearance as a part of God’s unique creation. It opens the door for us to see things from God’s perspective, and that is a very different view indeed.
Concerning God’s only Son, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
“He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him.
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:2-6).
“Kids Talk About God” is written and distributed by Carey Kinsolving. To access free, online “Kids Color Me Bible” books, “Mission Explorers” videos, a new children’s musical, and all columns in a Bible Lesson Archive, visit www.KidsTalkAboutGod.org. To read journey-of-faith feature stories written by Carey Kinsolving, visit www.FaithProfiles.org.
