A safe and perfect place
Have you ever felt like you didn't fit in? Maybe you couldn't get a place on the team or a part in a play because you didn't make the cut. Or, maybe you've felt like someone took your place and pushed you out of a friendship you had?
This can be really tough. But there is a way to be happy and to know that you will always be in the right place.
You've probably learned about the solar system. There's the sun with its planets in orbit around it. Each planet has a defined orbit. This can help us think about our own place in the universe. You can think of God as being like the sun, giving life and intelligence to the whole creation (that's you and everyone) and placing each idea (that's all of us, too) in a path of progress that lasts forever.
God has an infinite number of ideas. Each one is needed, because ideas are how God is expressed. God uses ideas to be and do what He is being and doing. That's why you're very important to God. It's as if when you were created God said, "I have a purpose for you. This is your place, and this is your purpose." God is totally good, so you can trust God's purpose for you to be completely good and to make you happy.
God is powerful and intelligent and keeps everything in order. Not one idea can break away into an orbit of its own. Or interfere with anyone else's progress. Each one is in perfect sync with everyone else. There are no collisions in God's universe of ideas.
God has a place for you, a safe and perfect place. You need to be what your Maker made you to be. You're always moving forward and always related to God.
You're not a planet, of course. You're really not made of material stuff at all (even though it seems that way). You really are an idea of God. The Bible says God made you to be like Him. That must mean that you're spiritual and perfect. You've got everything you need to live up to God's purpose for you. No two ideas are alike, so you express God in a unique way. That's why you are so important. There's no one else who expresses God exactly like you do. Without you, something important would be missing in the universe.
Don't think of your life as just an unimportant one without much adventure. It includes trillions of opportunities for you to express God in wonderful ways. Ways that help you, as well as other people. You might express God's love while you're baby-sitting, or coaching, or being a good friend. You might express God's strength in sports, or God's beauty as you dance, or paint, or sing in a chorus. You get the idea. There are so many opportunities to express God in your own special way.
These ideas have helped me a lot. One time I was in a new place and didn't know how to fit in. I met someone who I thought was doing everything right. I thought she was the "ideal." Since we were so different, I figured that I must be all wrong. So I tried and tried, really hard, to be just like her. But I couldn't do it. Then one day I got one of those messages God sends to help us. It was this: You are trying so hard to be like her, that no one is being you. Something is missing - and it's you.
I needed to use my talents, my skills, my humor, my own way of doing things. That wasn't an ego trip. It was seeing how great God made me. (And her, too. We were both needed.) These ideas helped me use my greatness in everything I did. Then I found my own place, and made my own mark of accomplishment.
You are important, too. Your place in God's universe is entirely safe and happy. You'll always be in the right relationship with God and with all of God's creation.
The ideas in this article are explored more fully in the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Monitor.
(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor
