Did He Try With Me?

Did He shape me with tired hands,

pressing clay that cracked too soon?

Did He run out of beauty before He got to me,

or did He simply not care how I would look?

*

I stare at the mirror,

a joke no one told me I was part of.

My nose—too broad.

My body—too much.

My skin—too flawed.

My mind—losing touch.

As if I was made in haste,

a mistake He forgot to smooth over,

pieces misplaced, parts of me I cannot escape.

*

Did He rush with me?

*

I wonder if He stepped back,

looked at me,

and sighed.

*

Or perhaps I ruined it before I even got here.

Stumbled in another life,

committed a sin so loud

that He carved the punishment into my face,

into my flesh,

into the way people look at me—

and then away.

*

Did He see me forming and decide,

Not this one. The next one, maybe.

*

A girl with one talent,

sulking now for having less.

Not enough time.

Not enough love.

I’m such a mess.

*

Did He make me this way on purpose?

Or did I earn this weight,

this softness,

this heaviness in my chest that won’t lift?

Did I fail Him,

sin my way into this shape,

this body,

this self I cannot love?

*

And yet— if He hated me,

why did He give me a voice

that still calls for Him in the quiet?

Why did He give me hands

that reach for something bigger,

even when I feel so small?

*

I do not know if I was made with care,

if I was sculpted or simply thrown together…

but I am still here.

And even if He did not try,

I will.

*

God… help me make sense of this.

*

Then, a small voice ignites.

Not a voice of anger,

but one of grace.

Hushed but insistent, speaking into the void.

I barely listen to Him at all,

yet still, He says:

*

“Reach for Me; seek what lies beyond the reflection’s glass.”

*

As I bow my head,

ready to end this poem in the gloom of my insecurities,

I realize…

*

Maybe it’s not my shape He judges,

but the way I refuse to see myself as He does.

Maybe He never cared about the way I look,

maybe He made me this way to learn to love

what I cannot change,

what He calls GOOD,

what He calls His own.

*

Did He try with me?

Well, he must have.

*

Because I am here.

Still breathing.

Still fighting to see the beauty

He stitched into my soul,

the beauty I cannot yet behold.

*

And maybe,

just maybe,

He never stopped trying with me.