Get in Line.

I spend a lot of my days telling my children at school to "get in line."  It's the sole way of transportation in the school building--to line up, stop talking, get behind so and so, and stop pushing.  Teachers always talk of having this box with buttons and audible preprogrammed instructions to help us save our voices (1.  Get in line.  2.  Stop talking.  3.  Raise your hand.  4.  Be quiet.)

There are some classes that are so exciting and busy that you have to line them up in certain orders--or risk chaos midway to your destination.  Joey can't be beside Sheila and Shay absolutely cannot line up next to Tina and if you put Nick next to Cora they will fight.  It's necessary to figure out these children's patterns by the first day of school to ensure sanity the remainder of the year.

And some of you non-teachers think I'm joking.  

However, I realized yesterday that some of us are still lining up in our heads.  We're trying to find our places in line and we haven't quite figured it out.  We're trying to figure out who to stand next to, who we can't be next to whom, and when we get to be the line leader. We spend a lot of our days determining our placement in line by the way we feel that we mentally measure up.

Ladies, we are the absolute worst for this.  We look at the line of ladies we know and come into contact with and try to figure out where we fall in line.  And not only do we let these things determine our number in line, we also let them define us.

She is thinner than me.  Go back two spaces. 

But I'm thinner than her.  Advance one. 

She's not nicer than me, but I'm not nearly as nice as that saintly lady.  

Her husband makes more money than mine.  But we aren't living in a house as little as that one. 

I look better than those 5 women.  But that one outshines us all. 

I love her because she's behind me.  

I hate her because she's in front of me. 

And where do we fall?  Are we happy when we're in the middle of the line?  Or do we need to be at least near the front?  Do we strive to be the leader?  Are we content to be in the back?  Are we being left behind?

But we are the one He looks for. 

We are the one sheep.  We are the uniquely created treasure.  We are facing the Judge in this game called life and we forget that He shaped us.  We forget that we are precious to Him.  We forget that we were created differently.  And we forget that He, who can do no wrong, created us all in His image.  

I look a lot like my Daddy.  I have Big John's teeth.  I have his overly sensitive nose.  I have his allergies.  I have his need for order.   

And when I look in the mirror, I often to forget to see that I not only look like Big John, but I was divinely created to look like this.  

And He thinks I'm beautiful.