What's wrong with this one?

This past Sunday, I was invited to share at a nearby church. I was excited to speak; but soon after I got there, I discovered God didn't have me there to speak as much as He had me there to hear.


To begin with, praise and worship was so sweet! I've heard Chadd Watson, a fellow teacher, sing with the students before, but this was the first time I'd had the opportunity to hear him lead in worship. Immediately I was caught up in the sweet sweet spirit of the place and the presence of the Lord.


At the end of the worship time, Chadd stopped to share a story that touched my heart, and I have not been able to quit thinking about it. I was so excited when he agreed to let me share it with you.


Chadd is a wonderful husband and a father of two precious little girls. As a family, they keep a coin jar where he dumps his spare change at the end of each day. About once every three months, they take the change to one of those CoinStar machines and convert the coins to cash so they can have a little fun - maybe a trip to the park, an ice cream treat, or even a train ride at the zoo!


It was at the CoinStar machine that this story took place. As Chadd dumped his change onto the tray, the coins started down the slots. Occasionally a coin would "spit out"  - rejected. Usually all it took was another try and the coin would join all the others in the machine. There was one quarter, however, that just kept getting spit out. 


At first, my friend was a little aggravated. What was wrong with that coin? He thought about taking it home and putting it with some of his other coins, or maybe he'd just use it in the nearby gum machine. Then something made him stop. What was wrong with that coin? He held it up and looked at it more closely. It looked different. It felt different. 


On a hunch, he looked up the coin on his phone. Now he realized what was different about this coin! It had been made the last year that they used silver to make quarters. That 25 cent piece was worth probably about $6.00! 


It was then that it hit him. He had been looking at the coin and wondering, "What is wrong with you," when in fact, he should have been asking, "What is special about you?" As Chadd shared his story, I could feel God nudge my own heart. He went on...it's not just coins we need to look at this way. That person who cuts you off in traffic, that person who is rude to you, that student that drives you crazy (okay, that example wasn't Chadd's; it was mine); instead of asking what is wrong with them, we need to ask for the eyes of Christ so that we can see what is SPECIAL about them.


How will I treat others differently when I see them not as "wrong" but as "special".... designed by God? What if we all started looking at people differently - the way God sees them? Would the world be a different place?


Yep, I thought I went to this church to speak....instead, I think God sent me so that when Chadd shared his story, I could hear. Now I've shared it with you....do me a favor and share it with someone else today. (Thank you again, Chadd...for being who God created you to be!)


Isaiah 64:8 
"Still, God, you are our Father. 
   We're the clay and you're our potter: 
   All of us are what you made us."

Psalm 139:13-16

The Message (MSG)

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
      you formed me in my mother's womb.
   I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
      Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
      I worship in adoration—what a creation!
   You know me inside and out,
      you know every bone in my body;
   You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
      how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
   Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
      all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
   The days of my life all prepared
      before I'd even lived one day.