You Are Special

Cici Jasmine gave Max this book for his birthday: You Are Special by Max Lucado. Mommy loves it very much! Thank you The Wijayas!

The books is about a wemmick called Punchinello. The wemmicks were small wooden people. All of the wooden people were carved by a woodworker named Eli. Each Wemmick is different.

Every day, the Wemmicks gave each other stickers, depending on what they think of others. People spent their days sticking stars or dots on one another.

Some Wemmicks had stars all over them! Others, though, could do little. They got dots. Punchinello was one of these. He tried to do what others do, but he always fell. And when he fell, the others would give him dots. Sometimes when he fell, his wood got scratched, so the people would give him more dots. Then when he tried to explain why he fell, he would say something silly, and the Wemmicks would give him more dots. After a while he had so many dots that he didn't want to go outside. The few times he went outside, he hung around other Wemmicks who had a lot of dots.

One day, Punchinello meets a wooden girl who has no stickers! When people try to put stars on her, they don't stick! And the dots don't stick either! She explains to Punchinello that this is because she goes to visit Eli, the master woodcarver, who made them all. She suggested Punchinello to go visit Eli as well.

So Punchinello decided to go see Eli.

"Punchinello! How good to see you. Come and let me have a look at you."

Punchinello turned slowly and looked at the large bearded craftsman.

"You know my name?" he asked.

"Off course I do. I made you." Eli stooped down and picked him up and set him on the bench.

"Hmm" the maker spoke thoughtfully as he looked at the dots. "Looks like you've been given some bad marks."

"I didn't mean to, Eli. I really tried hard."

"Oh, you don't have to defend yourself to me, child. I don't care what the other Wemmicks think."

"You don't?"

"No, and you shouldn't either. Who are they to give stars or dots? They're Wemmicks just like you. What they think doesn't matter, Punchinello. All that matters is what I think. And I think you are pretty special."

"Me, special? Why? I can't walk fast. I can't jump. My paint is peeling. Why do I matter to you?"

Eli looked at Punchinello put his hands on those small wooden shoulders, and spoke very slowly. "Because you're mine. That's why you matter to me."

Punchinello had never had anyone look at him like this-much less his maker. He didn't know what to say.

"Every day I've been hoping you'd come." Eli explained.

"I came because I met someone who had no marks," said Punchinello.

"I know. She told me about you."

"Why don't the stickers stay on her?"

The maker spoke softly: "Because she has decided that what I think is more important than what they think. The sticker only stick if you let them"

"What?"

"The stickers only stick if they matter to you. The more you trust my love, the less you care about their stickers."

....

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Proverbs 3:5