I praise you, for I am fearful and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:4 ESV

I have felt unworthy, unappreciated for who I am; I have also felt loved and admired for who I am. Truth be told, I’m a bit strange at times. My family and close friends would say I’m a bit strange all the time. You see though, if I acted in any other way they’d soon began to ask what was wrong with me, because they love who I am. I would do the same if they began to act in any other way, because I love who they are. You have your own character and so do I.

I’m not talking about rudeness, ignorance, selfishness, acting inconsiderate, disrespectful, etc. But the unique personality God gave us. All of those I just listed are nasty habits that can be erased, they hold nothing of our character. They do not define us.

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.” Billy Graham-

What would you say Billy Graham meant when he said this? I honestly don’t know; I have never heard him use it, I simply read the quote and loved it. When I read the quote I thought about what it meant and I understood it like this: When our character is lost, who are we? Of course, as a child of God, we remain a child of God. But what kind of child are we? In a family nest, one child may joke a lot, yet the other stays more serious. The next child may love to try new things, while the other sticks to his natural surroundings. The other may smile a lot, while his sibling may whistle a lot.

Now, what happens when these characters are lost? Are we nothing, but a gloomy shadow? Or are we an apple tree, stripped from all growth and promise? Before the lost of our character, we had our natural happiness to cheer our friends on. We had our smiles to show a forgotten stranger love. Without our care for our natural surroundings, we give our small town no purpose. Without our serious face, we give our sibling’s jokes no purpose.

A lot of times we may put our character aside and choose to steal someone else’s– or at least try to. Yet, does this ever work? A friend of mine says she’s often tried to be someone else when she feels out of place; her reports are always the same, sadness, which led to a day made worse than it could have been. The way I see it: if God wanted two the exact same characters, then He would have created two the exact same characters. But He likes variety. Not a person in this world is exactly like someone else, so why would you try to be?

If God wanted two the exact same characters, then He would have created two the exact same characters.

For everything created by God is good . . . 1 Timothy 4:4 ESV

God gave each and every one of us a character before we were born. He wouldn’t want us to be anyone else, but who He made us to be.