I Am...

I have this chair. I've been on the hunt for the perfect chair for my little bitty photography business, and never could quite find exactly what I wanted. So I decided to make it. My best friend found this U-G-L-Y chair at a yard sale for $7.

But I saw the potential.

So tonight as I began to recover it, I Am used the job to speak volumes to me about who I am...

I am...a mess!




Look at this poor thing. It is ugly. It is stained. It is weathered.

This is me. Right now. In this season of my life. I am...ugly. My sin in my heart is so wretched that if it were external, I'm pretty sure no one would be able to stand the sight of me, let alone the stench. I am...stained. The years of abuse, self loathing, shame, disgust, hatred...the list could go on and on...has left me with some nasty stains. Ones that maybe over and over again I have tried to scrub out. Just like this chair. But no matter how hard I scrubbed, it never got what was beneath the surface. So then, just like everything else we've ever tried to do on our own...the stain resurfaced. Oh, sure...it didn't look like the old stain...now it had just expanded it's area of coverage. Now it's even more noticeable. I am...weathered. Years of allowing people to pile their stuff on me...good or bad. Being exposed to The Light...then allowing myself to hide in the dark...just to finally allow The Light back on...only to slip back again...

I am...still under there



Someone really tried. They really did. They tried do make something beautiful of it. On their own. They broke out some fancy piping and some buttons. Even wielded some fancy paint brushes and beautiful colors to mask what was underneath.


That's me. Wielding my paint brushes and beautiful colors. Working diligently...hoping no one will see the mess that is underneath. Surely all of this will distract them.

I am...full of potential

The treasure in this chair is not what is on the outside at all. It's the Foundation that is within it. The Solid Structure. The Truth within.

I am...in need of some work



A lot of work. Like this awful looking chair, I need to submit myself to having all of the junk stripped away. Painful tear against the flesh by every painful tear. And the tools that need to be used...aren't gentle brushes...the kind used to attempt to cover things up. They HURT! They yank and pull and tear the junk away until it is completely separated from the foundation...the potential.



Then look! All that I once thought was pretty at one point in my life...all that seemed to be the good covering for what was underneath is now lying in a heap on the ground. The fancy fasteners that once held it all in place...now bearing their ugly scars. The piercing way they were held on. Their roots if you will.

Now it's just disgusting to look at. To think I held on to such scraps...

I am...covered

After many a hour shaping and molding and tucking and pulling, it was covered. New. Beautiful. Not of anything in its own right at all. The scars...they may still be below the surface, but they won't resurface. Why? They're covered.

And once I have been willing to see myself for who I am, and then submit myself to the tearing away and complete covering...I now can fully function as I was originally designed to and in the area where I was desired to be all along.



I am...what I was designed to be.

I am...The I Am's...