Pronounced Good - Martin Wiles

Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! Genesis 1:31 NLT

 

I wanted to be pronounced good, but many didn’t.

 

Near the end of my elementary school journey, the unthinkable happened. I knew I couldn’t see well, but I didn’t think anyone else knew. However, my teacher did. I suppose my getting up from the back—where I always sat because my last name began with W—and slithering down the aisle to see what the teacher had written on the blackboard gave it away. My eyes were terrible. She notified my parents, they gave me a home test, and then they took me to the eye doctor—who made the fatal pronouncement: “You need glasses.”

 

I’ve known children and teens who wore fake glasses because they thought they looked good. In the 1960s, no one did this. Young folks didn’t want glasses because their friends would call them “four-eyes.” Contacts weren’t an option, so I had to get the dreaded glasses to see things clearly. Sure enough, many of my friends called me “four-eyes.” That and other labels I received because I was skinny and non-athletic hurt. Some of the sayings I remembered years later.

 

Margaret knew pain like mine. She was a little on the overweight side. I suppose her classmates thought she ate too much—and perhaps she did—but they showed their insensitivity by calling her fat, a stigma that stayed with her until she became an older adult and finally chose to change her eating habits and undergo weight-loss surgery. Even at retirement age, she still remembered the names. And I remember the little jingle, too, that students called those who were overweight: “Fatty fatty two by four, can’t get through the kitchen door.”

 

Thankfully, God doesn’t give labels such as fat or four-eyes. When He finished His work of creation, He pronounced it good. This included the humans He had made. He even went a step further and created us in His image. This makes us different than animals.

 

Low self-esteem doesn’t have to haunt us—nor do the names or labels others give us. God says we are good because He made us. He is our Creator. And on a more personal note, He is the heavenly Father of all who acknowledge His Son as their Savior. 

God doesn’t make junk. We may wonder why God created us as we are, but a reason exists—even if we never know it.

 

Eventually, I learned to see myself as God sees me. Margaret did, too. And so can everyone else who has been labeled with a self-esteem-lowering tag. We’ll look at others through different lenses when we view ourselves as God does. We won’t see faults and flaws, but someone loved by God—and someone whom we should love.

 

Learn to pronounce others as good—and then treat them accordingly.

 

Father, we thank You for making all things good, including us. 

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