I confess. I am a mess.

Ooo, I was just a poet and didn’t know it.

But I am a mess.

Sometimes, I frighten people with my friendliness. It comes across too strong a little too early. I am an acquired taste, a bit odd and unusual. And sometimes I confuse someone who is friendly and nice to everybody with someone who genuinely wants to be my friend.

In other words, I’m unique.

So are you.

Maybe you’ve tried way too hard to make someone like you or be your friend.

Maybe you’ve wondered why all the people in your life seem gradually withdraw from you and go away after a while. Maybe even family members. Or spouses. The ones closest to you who you thought would always be there.

Here’s the thing. To God, you’re beautiful. To God, you’re a priceless work of art. To God, your worth is more than the very lifeblood of His only Son, all the agony and torture of a painful death on a cross. You matter.

I’ve come to believe the right people will see your mess and stick around anyway.

The right people will call out the good they see in you and help you to see it in yourself. They will help you remember that song in your heart when you’ve forgotten the words.

Even a Van Gogh painting probably looked like a mess when it was still in progress. And that’s what you are, dear friend.

A work in progress. A masterpiece in the making. Heaven’s poetry etched onto lives, as one translation of Ephesians 2:10 puts it.

Don’t despair. Don’t give up or give in to the pressure to be someone else or (perish the very idea) try to be normal.

Take courage, dear heart. God made you to be you. He delights in you being you. He’s even helping you find your truest self, the “youest” you.

Christmas is all about messes. Do you think the manger scene was pristine? Do you think the place where Jesus arrived was a 5-star hotel? It was not.

If Jesus arrived in the middle of a messy manger, then He above anyone understands what messes look like and how to make them clean. Not better, not improved, but new.

Celebrate that you’re you and no one else. One day, you’ll find out that your part in God’s Story might not have been the leading role, but it was vital to the Story and you made a difference in the outcome.

These are just the thoughts of one hot mess directed to all the other hot messes out there.