When your girl nuzzles into you on the couch and asks you, “Do you think she’s better than me? She has blond shiny hair like the pretty girls. She does gymnastics and horseback riding. What am I good at?” And she can’t look at you because she’s squirming around in a big ugly cauldron of insecurities Lucifer is stirring her up in. I just squeeze her tighter and feel how we have more than genetics in common.

Aunt Wilma says, “Every black crow thinks her’s is the blackest.” Amen?

“The truth is baby girl, what the world thinks of you, what I think of you, it doesn’t compare to what God thinks of you. I think you’re the prettiest thing my eyes have ever seen. I think you’re smart, funny, kind-hearted, loyal, a good secret keeper, and you’re only two classes into tak-won-do and you’re already earning high praises and stripes from your instructor.”

But God.

•God calls you friend. John 15:15
•God says you are His heir. Romans 8:17
•You are wise, and You. Are. Redeemed. 1 Corinthians 1:30

“Bird, maybe we should spend time highlighting Gods’ love notes to you because there is a world full of people who get confused about what makes someone matter and all my reasons you are great are a bit tainted by that world. But God, all his reasons you are enough, they are holy and good.”

Let me say this to you dear reader; stop trying to become what you already are. All my reasons you’re great are a bit tainted by the world, but God! …And You. Are. Redeemed.