Potential Misused

It's the all too familiar tragic story.

The girl who looks at herself in the mirror and doesn't like what she sees.

The girl who tells herself over and over again.

"I'm ugly. I'm fat. I'm disgusting."

And nobody believes it but her. Why?

Because we see the worst of ourselves.

"I'm stupid. I'm thoughtless. I'm not good enough."

Her boyfriend is no dummy. He knows that he'd better say that she's beautiful or there'll be hell to pay.

But that's not why he says it.

He says it because it's true.

She is beautiful.

The man who looks at himself in the reflection of a cross and doesn't like what he sees.

The man who tells himself over and over again.

"I'm hopeless. I'm sinful. I don't deserve your love."

But God doesn't see it. God doesn't care. God's greatest frustration isn't that he sins, it's that he has such potential. God loves us for who we really are, not for who we see in the mirror. God loves us for what we could be, because to him what we could be is who we are.

He's not mad because we sin - he's mad because we have the potential not to. Because we don't have faith in ourselves.

"I'm not good enough to change the world," he says. "Nobody will read what I have to say anyway. Who am I to tell them anything?" He's wrong you know.

"I'll never stop smoking." This from the man on the corner.

"I'll never fall in love." The heartbroken friend.

"I'll never be what my father wanted me to be." So he stops trying.

"I'm fat. I'm ugly. I'm disgusting." And her boyfriend tells her every day that her smiles bring him up. Her friends tell her that she's pretty, and behind the scenes his friends talk about how lucky he is to have her.

But she won't see it.

He's only mad because you won't be who you are.