“For just
as each of us has one body with many parts, and these parts do not all have the
same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each
member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according
to the grace given to each of us.” Romans 12:4-6
A couple weeks ago I did a lesson
for the kids at church on this verse. I’m a very visual/experiential person so
to demonstrate the lesson better I drew a person on a big piece of paper that
was as tall as me (which actually isn’t that tall I guess). He had two ears,
two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two hands and feet - he was a normal looking guy
is what I’m getting at here. Then I talked to the kids about this verse and
about how one of them might be an eye and one might be a foot but we all can
work together to do good things just like all the parts of a body function to
help us do what we need to do. They seemingly accepted this and snickered a little
at the thought of being a foot or a hand.
Then I brought out some extra eyes,
hands, mouths, feet, etc. I told the kids how sometimes the mouth gets jealous
of the hand and thinks he’s not doing as good of a thing as the hand gets to do
and so he wishes he were a hand. At this point I put the extra mouth where a
hand should be on our model and the laughter starts to build. Then I say the
hand does not see much value in what she is doing either so she really wants to
be an ear because ears seem more special and important. A hand goes where an
ear should be. This continues until the poor paper model is all discombobulated
and the kids are giggling uncontrollably. “Does this look right to you guys?” A
loud, unanimous vote of NO!
We talked about what this looks
like in our own lives when we know we are good at something but it’s hard to
remember that when we see that other people are good at things that we aren’t
great at. And inside we wish we were something else because we don’t see how
important it is that we all need to
be different.
I have been thinking on this lesson
a lot lately, as I see more and more articles popping up about pinterest stress
and the comparison syndrome epidemics fueled by social media. We all feel it at
some point. We are looking at facebook or instagram and seeing someone with a
great talent or going somewhere cool and suddenly we forget that we have any
talents or ever go cool places. We want their talent or lifestyle because we
forget that we are supposed to be
different from them. We can’t all be the same thing. We can’t all play
beautiful music, we can’t all be business savy, or all crafty or all computer
wizards. Just like we can’t have a body made of only ears, or a body of only
feet. That’s weird and doesn’t make any sense, any kid can tell you that.
I like simple things and kids
usually make complicated thoughts seem pretty simple, so I’m trying to remember
this lesson for myself. When I see someone whose great at something I’m not and
I feel those nasty comparison feelings creeping up I think, ‘they are an eye
and I am a hand, and that’s ok.’ We learn and grow from uniqueness, we see things
from different perspectives. We appreciate things we didn’t know about before
when we have friends that are different from us. And that’s how things should
look - ear’s doing ear’s work, foot doing foot’s work and all functioning together
to make things right and good, each of us appreciating how we work together.
We are all valuable, we are all essential and
we are all different.
