A mother held her newborn son and whispered in his ear,

“I love you so much, little one, I hold you very dear.

I love exactly who you are, I love you through and through.

The LORD knew how He was blessing me, when He gave me you.

Knitting together your heart and mind as you grew inside of me,

In His wisdom He fully planned who you were going to be.

God made your little hands and feet, your eyes and nose as well,

so you can do so many things like dance, jump, see and smell.

You will grow bigger every day, and as more time will pass,

you and I will both wish that time had not flown by so fast.

You are a child of God, He declares you are His own.

The truth is your identity is found in Christ alone.

This truth is dear to us, but some people get it confused.

They think “whatever makes me happy” is a good excuse

to completely change how they look, and change their very self,

so they can try to live as someone other than themself.

They think that they will love themselves more than they did before,

but they do not know that Jesus Christ loves them so much more.

Our Saviour loves these people so much more than they could know.

He loves every inch of them, from their head down to their toes.

He died out of pure love for them, exactly as they were.

The way that God created them is what they should prefer.

When you attempt to change yourself in every single way,

you find that loving how God made you is the better way.

I hope when you grow up, my dear, you love how you were made,

so that others may look to you and see God’s love displayed.

Reach out to those who have no hope, give them a listening ear,

so by loving them they will see that God is always near.

Surround the people who do not know what to be or do,

pray for them and tell them that through Christ they are renewed.

My darling, if you ever have thoughts that you need to change,

or if you don’t feel good enough just the way you are made,

you can come to me and tell me, I’ll wrap you in my arms.

I’ll whisper that I love you, exactly the way you are.

I love you because you are mine, but not just mine alone.

You are a precious child of God who bought you as His own.”

*****

“I wrote this poem a couple years ago for an assignment in my Health class. We had been discussing the topic of Identity, what our society has made it, and how we as Christians are to respond. I wanted to write something for children as well as adults to remind them that our identity is not dependent on our fluctuating emotions, but our identity is in Christ as image bearers of God.” – Jenny