You Are No Accident

I cringe every time I hear it, “My parents didn’t plan to have any more kids; I was an accident.” Or even worse, a parent telling the story, “Yeah, well we thought we were done until _____ decided to show up” (like an unwanted guest). Even if parents and family are delighted and dote on this child and treasure them, somehow these words plant the idea in a child that they really don’t belong here.
 

Maybe you’ve always suspected you were not planned, or expected, or wanted. Perhaps you were even told—verbally or physically—that you messed everything up with your untimely arrival. The hurt runs deep. But don’t you believe it. YOU ARE NO ACCIDENT. 

You are loved; you were designed. There’s a reason you’re here on this planet, even if your parents didn’t plan for you. There is a God in heaven who hovered over you in the womb and delighted as He made you—His one of a kind creation. 

This last weekend Janet showed us an amazing sweater she made thirty years ago for the baby girl she never had. She told us her husband groans when she starts knitting a new creation, because she stops every few rows to effervesce over her work. “Isn’t this just beautiful?” she’ll say, holding out her masterpiece. “Can you believe these stitches?” 

“Mm, hmm,” he’ll respond, perhaps less enthusiastically than she might have hoped.

How much more does our Heavenly Father delight as He plans each tiny detail of our being? “I think I’ll make her eyes blue…I’ll give him a dimpled chin…She will inspire everyone who hears her sing…He will be good at math and science…She will care for the unloved and give others hope…He will be a man of integrity and courage.” On and on it goes. Every person God has ever created is uniquely gifted.

Jan also made us laugh when she held up her knitting needles and ball of yarn, “And just in case you think I could throw these up in the air and an explosion would make them come out looking like that sweater I just showed you? I don’t think so!” No, we’re not an explosion, or a science experiment.

Just look at what the Bible says about how we got here:

Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you? (Deut. 32:6)

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. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! (Psa. 139:13-17)

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. (Ecc. 11:5)

“This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things.” Isa. 44:24

Like any artist, God hates it when we insult what He has made and call ourselves worthless:

Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”? (Isa. 29:16)

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Rom. 9:20

God not only wants to have a personal relationship with us, but He designed us to fill a place only we can fill:

But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, (put your name in the blanks) _____, he who formed you, _____: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. (Isa. 43:1)

This is what the Lord says—he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid, (put your name in the blanks)_____, my servant, _____ whom I have chosen. (Isa. 44:2)

 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” (Jer. 1:5)

It is the evil one who wants you to despair, to think you have no value, to wish you’d never been born. If you think your life is not worthwhile, or have toyed with ending your life, I plead with you to stop and consider. 

Read the verses again, out loud this time, and ask God to show you if He’s real. He may speak to your heart, in a dream, a song, through another person’s words, or from the Bible. God has unlimited ways to let you know how much He loves you. I pray you will open your eyes and heart to Him now.

You are no accident. 

#reasontolive #bornforapurpose #unwanted #suicidenottheanswer #createdandloved