It was one of those cold, snowy days, when mothers of young children, shut indoors for far too long, start pulling out craft supplies. I’m not normally one for crafts, but out of desperation, came up with what I thought was the perfect snow day project with my children. I decided to cut out two four foot tall Christmas trees from butcher paper, and have the boys paint them so we could hang them on their bedroom doors. Then we were going to decorate the trees with their own hand-made ornaments. Brilliant. Surely I could parlay this into a business on etsy.

I cut out the trees and pulled out brown and green paint – brown for the base of the tree, of course; green for the leaves – because these were going to be evergreens, and evergreens are green.  I thought that much to be self evident. A no brainer. That’s the way it is.

The boys immediately got to work.  Soon I noticed that my 5 year old was rummaging through the paint box.  “What do you need?” I asked.  “I’m looking for purple,” he said.  “Um, no…we’re using brown and green. These are Christmas trees,” I said. “But I want purple,” he said.

“No, no.  No, no, no…,” I said, “That’s not the plan. The plan is make these into Christmas trees. You can decorate them with colorful ornaments later.”

He wanted purple…and yellow and red and blue and orange. As I stood there clinging to my plan for the project (it had been my idea, after all), I heard a little voice of conscience whisper in my ear.

“It’s his tree.”

“Yeah, but the tree was my idea.”

“But it’s his tree.”

Yes, I was talking to myself. Mothers of young children often do that. Who am I kidding? I still do that.

My older son, the one painting his tree green, per his mother’s instruction, proudly announced, “I’m making my tree look real.” And my younger son, whose tree was rapidly starting to look like a tree shaped bag of skittles responded, “I’m making my tree look colorful.”

Fine.  I let my perfect idea of the perfect Christmas tree project go. At least I thought I did.

But then I saw Leyton rummaging through the box again. 

“What are you looking for now?” I asked.

“Fingerpaints!” he replied.

“Oh my gosh, no! We’re not fingerpainting. We’re using brushes…that was the plan!”

“But I want to fingerpaint.”

“Okay, but at least swirl your hands around so you can cover the tree.”

“No, Mom, I want to do this.”  Stamp.  Stamp.  The tree now had handprints all over it.

That’s what you do at Thanksgiving when you’re making turkeys! We’re making Christmas trees!

Again, I heard the little voice whisper, “It’s his tree.”

But it was my idea! 

I gave up.

I sat down next to my sons and just started painting with them. We never got around to decorating the trees. But after we finished painting and let the paint dry, we hung them on their bedroom doors.

That’s when I realized how much I loved both trees. In my eyes, they were both absolutely perfect.  Let me show you why.

This is Cameron’s tree. This could only be Cameron’s tree. When I look at this tree, I see his personality. Cameron follows the rules. He colors inside the lines. He likes boundaries. He likes the world to work according to what he knows and understands about it. He would only ever color a Christmas tree green. I look at it and I see him. And I love it. If I had not seen him paint that tree and was presented with both trees and asked to guess which one was his, I would know, immediately, that he had painted the green tree. It’s authentic to who he is.

This is Leyton’s tree.  This could only be Leyton’s tree. Leyton thinks outside the box. He tests the boundaries. He marches to the beat of his own drum. He would use every color in the paint box on his Christmas tree. I look at it and I see him. And I love it. If I had not seen him paint that tree and was presented with both trees and asked to guess which one was his, I would know, immediately, that he had painted the colorful tree. It’s authentic to who he is.

But do you know what makes this tree especially beautiful to me?  When I look carefully at this tree, I see Leyton’s hand prints all over it. It bears the hand print of its creator and reflects the delight he took in creating it.

Do you know that you bear the hand print of your Creator and that he took delight in creating you?  Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, “’Let us (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) make man in our image, in our likeness…So God created man in his own image…’”

In Psalm 139:13-15, David wrote to God, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.”

God made you in his own image. He knit you and wove you together with great care.  But that’s not all.  He also made you unique – just the way he wanted you to be. In 1 Corinthians 12:15-19 Paul writes about the way that God has uniquely gifted the members of the church to do different things, but a general principal that we can take away from it is that God values diversity and so created each one of us uniquely, on purpose:

“Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”

I love that last line: “But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” It makes me think of Leyton insisting on the colors that he wanted to use on his tree. It makes me think of the deliberate way that he stamped his hand prints on the tree. And it makes me remember the delight he took in painting that tree.

The God who created the spring flowers may have made you an artist.  The God who built all that we see by stacking atoms and molecules and cells together may have made you a scientist.  The God who placed the physical laws into the universe may have given you the mind of an engineer. The God who loves deeply and with great compassion may have given you a heart for social work. I don’t know how he made you, but he made you…your husband…and your children – uniquely. For every facet of God’s character and personality, he has a unique hand print to leave on his creation. He has left one of his hand prints, as a reflection of who he is, on each one of us. Why would we try to live up to anyone else’s standard?

But that’s not all. There’s an additional hand print he stamps onto our hearts when we choose to love and follow him. Jesus tells us that when we put that hand print on display, we tell the world that we are authentically his: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Love.

It’s the authentic hand print of Jesus. When people see it in us, Jesus wants them to identify us as authentically his.

Love. It’s not always easy, but for authenticity as a follower of Jesus Christ, it’s always required.

Are you struggling to live authentically today? If you are, stop for a moment and pray. Ask God to direct you according to the unique way that he made you and to put his hand print of love on display in your life. Then head out into the world and live authentically, as his unique creation and his loving ambassador, today.