Who validates you?
Who gives you a sense of belonging, purpose, and meaning?
I can't imagine of another generation that's been lied to more than ours.
I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
All these bombardments of advertising and messaging in everything we see on TV, magazines,
what is beautiful, what is happiness, what is good enough.
You're beautiful
One day during a speaking tour, I was speaking in front of 300 executive businessmen and
bankers in Singapore, 2008. And I'll never forget how shocked I was, seeing this businessmen
coming up to me, saying Nick, because of the world economic crash, my banks have lost money,
but I don't care about money anymore. I need your help.
And I said what's wrong?
And he said itís my daughter. She's 14 years old and she looks at herself in the mirror
and she can't see anything but ugly. Help me.
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to prey exactly at that moment. I could
see the love that this father had for his child, but it wasn't enough, and it never
will be enough, because her perception became her obsession, and that brought her to a spiral of depression.
I see you there hanging on a tree You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Our God, our creator instills in us what we lack. Our identity is defined by Him.
In first John, chapter four, verse eighteen, it says there is no fear in love, but perfect
love casts out all fear. Finally, these teens and preteens don't have to be scared anymore
about what they think they need to look like, or what others think of them. Because finally,
there is truth of a perfect love, that has no bounds.
Take it from a guy without arms and legs. Life can be cruel. People can be thoughtless
of just plain mean. So I've learned to keep returning to the validation of the only one
who is qualified to give it.
Friend, you are a child of God.