We All Matter...

Our first day of YMs Camp each of the girls were given a 5x7 piece of paper with little dots with letters inside. They were told it was a paint by letter picture and they needed to have them painted and turned in by 2pm that day. 

As we went back to our campsite we began painting our pictures and at first they were excited to see what they were going to be a picture of. Then the excitement quickly turned to mumbling, my picture is like all brown, it looks boring! My picture has 143 white dots! Do I  have to finish this? I don't get it. This is Boring...the excitement dwindled fast as they realized that their individual piece of paper wasn't going to make a picture, but then a small surge of enthusiasm began when someone said, well actually, maybe we are going to have to put our pictures together like a puzzle to make a big picture. Then the speculation about what it was going to be began. 

Eventually they girls did finish and we turned them in on time, with a little push of encouragement and bribery, as soon as you guys are all done we can go swim in the lake! 

Later that night the girls all sat as we had our evening devotional. The devotional was all about our purpose here on earth. How we all play a small part in the big picture. How we all matter, what we do matters, it affects others and the path that we head down. And then this picture was unveiled and the gasps and oos and awes began. Everyone was amazed at this amazing painting that they all had contributed to. The first thing that some of the girls noticed were there were pieces of the painting missing and it made the picture incomplete. Some of them noticed certain pieces stood out because the squares were pretty different, but they fit! They helped the painting have more depth and beauty. 

Just like in life, we sometimes feel like we don't matter in the scheme of things, we don't fit in or our contributions aren't good enough...we all matter, we all fit and we are all good enough.