Think about the times in your life
when you’ve felt like nobody
sees you. That nobody knows
you as you. I’m hearing ’80s Madonna in my
head right now, and I hope you
are too!)
It’s not just that we long for self-
expression, for uniqueness—we
were created for that by a
creative God. On any given Sunday there are
more than a hundred second
graders in classrooms at the
church I pastor. Second graders
are a generally awesome
bunch. They occupy a kind of
sweet spot between younger
and older kids. As I write this,
my daughter Maranatha is a
second grader. Much younger
and you’re dealing with wet
pants and tantrums, plus lots of
drool. Much older, though, and
you start to get stinky feet (and
armpits), plus eye rolling.
The only thing that will truly
Sure, you may still have friendly
satisfy our need for creative
neighbors or coworkers. You
self-expression is a lifestyle, not a
may still be part of a rec-league new haircut or our team winning
basketball team or a book club. a championship. We limit
But you feel as if, in the eyes of
ourselves to those narrow alleys
everyone else, you could be
of creativity as we age. We
anyone. You could be replaced. get used to the idea of being
You’re generic, not unique.
uncreative in nearly everything
That’s the opposite of how we’re we do.
meant to feel.
But we don’t start out that way.
Even if we don’t think of
ourselves as expressive people,
we’re constantly expressing
and broadcasting ourselves to
others. The clothes we wear,
how we wear them, and which
occasions we wear them on.
Music, hair, vehicles, hobbies,
neighborhoods, food, sports
teams, social networking,
schools . . . the list of how we
project our unique selves goes
on and on.
One of the things that makes
second graders awesome is that
they know they’re awesome—
The reason we can still feel as if
no one sees us, or that we aren’t which makes them happy. Like
truly who we are meant to be, is they’ll tell you they are the best
puppy trainer in the universe or
that stuff like musical taste and
clothing choices aren’t sufficient that they are the best at math.
They’re not bragging, so much
ways to express ourselves. (Yes,
Solutions 65