And so it is with us.  You can judge a product’s potential – you can judge a product’s value by looking at the One who created it.  In other words, you are valuable – simply because you are created by the hand of God. 

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

As a little girl, I loved to watch Billy Graham crusades on television mainly for one reason.  I wanted to hear Ethyl Waters sing “His Eye is On the Sparrow”. During one particular crusade, Miss Waters shared her life story before she sang. I was amazed to learn that she had been conceived in a rape. Long after Miss Waters sang her last note, I thought about the riveting testimony of this precious woman.  My heart filled with awe, thanking God that through what we would probably call “an accident” or “tragedy”, He created beauty and purpose.  Ethyl Waters is a powerful and living illustration of God’s stubborn love and the amazing truth that whatever touches us has to pass through His hands, with His permission.  Why?  Because we belong to Him! The Father made us - we are His, and as my seventeen year old daughter would say, “Girl, you are something else!”  I couldn’t’ have said it better. 

Next month: I am loved and chosen.

A personal word from Mary: Many times over the years, I have served God with the wrong heart motive.  I have used the opportunity and privilege of ministry as a platform from which I fed my own sense of worth and serviced my narcissistic human goals.  I served to be valuable instead of serving because I am valuable.  Certainly my worth and value rest completely in Him and it is only because of the deposits He makes in my life that I am able to withdraw strength and power to live and minister.  On my own, I have nothing and am nothing. Through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I have everything and am valuable.  Live today in the power of the truth that in God’s eyes - you are something else!