Divine Dress

I was at a local department store the other day, buying a white dress shirt. Yep, didn't really have one...I think I threw the the only one I had out the other week when I did some late spring cleaning. Two other quick points about this: 1. Funny how I haven't needed one for quite some time - THANK goodness for churchplanting. 2. I was needing one for Dana's graduation tomorrow, now only 11 hours away! So I'm blogging from the 24th floor of The Galt House, overlooking the Ohio River.

Ok, back to the story. I was buying a cheap, white dress shirt to wear with my suit for Dana's graduation. I found one I liked and then went hunting for the right size. As I was digging, I noticed a slight variation from one shirt to the next. (Most people would have grabbed the first one that was the correct size, but I'm a stinkin' perfectionist and detailed and picky....sorry.) To keep it short, I eventually had three shirts lined up on the table. Here's the deal: They were all the exact same shirt - same size, same name brand, same style, all pinpoint collar, etc, etc. But I couldn't help but notice that the color seemed slightly off on one...and one had more stuffing in it (whatever that white flimsy paper is called that is used during Christmas)...and one had lint all over it (I ruled that one out fast).

So as I'm observing this phenomenon (bored yet?)...and reading the tags to be sure I've grabbed the same shirt...I noticed where the shirts were made. Here's what I saw:

Shirt #1: Made in Honduras with US fabric
Shirt #2: Made in Thailand
Shirt #3: Made in Vietnam

Well, isn't that interesting? I don't think I had ever seen that. EXACT same shirt, but here were 3 of them - in the same bin at the store - all from 3 different places, one stacked upon the other. I grabbed the one I thought "looked best"...yeah, I know, how much difference could there have really been?

Leaving the store, I had a thought. Huh, we are kind of like that, aren't we? We all have the same marking. We have all been "branded" by the same Maker. We "wear" the same symbol and carry the same name: Christian, Follower of the Way, Believer. Yet, though we carry out the same purposes, we have distinct differences. Also, we are all from different places. This also makes us unique. So, same Maker, same Branding, same Marking, made for a same divine purpose...yet uniquely different and uniquely called.