You are Special

I am very touched, and always have been, by the book You are Special by Max Lucado. It's a children's book about wooden people called Wemmicks. The Wemmicks walk around giving eachother star and dot stickers. They get stars if they're good, and dots if they're bad. Punchinello, the main character of the book, always gets dots. He falls down a lot, his paint is chipped, etc. So people give him dots. He meets a Wemmick named Lucia who has no dots...and no stars. He asks her how she does it, and she tells Punchinello that she just doesn't let the stickers stick. She goes to see Eli, the woodmaker, every day and he reminds her that he thinks she's pretty special. Punchinello wants to be just like Lucia, so he goes to see Eli too. Sure enough, Eli tells Punchinello how much he loves him because he made him...and he doesn't make mistakes. After hearing this, Punchinello walked away believing that it didn't matter what the others thought...as long as he was loved by Eli. And while he walked away, a dot fell off. :) Now, I just summed up the story pretty quickly, but isn't it great? If you couldn't pick up the Christian symbolism, try reading it again. It's a wonderful story of God's love for us...and that that's all that matters. :)

I bring up this story because in my Theater for Children class, we had to pick a Children's story and adapt it for theater. I picked You are Special because I love it so much and I can really picture it coming to life on a stage. I had a great time writing the script for this play...it was definitely one of the more enjoyable homework assignments I've done. After we've all shared our adaptations with the class, we'll vote on one of them that we get to perform for the Children's Institute (on campus). I really think it'd be great if my script gets picked. I think that it would be an amazing opportunity to share Jesus with my class and a group of children...even if this is a story about wooden people. :) Please pray that if God wills, my story will be picked.