Being Chris Carpenter
CBN.com - It is a tough job being Chris Carpenter. Anyone who has spent any time around me will tell you that I am instantly brilliant, vastly intelligent, unbelievably handsome, a person who loves dispensing a razor sharp wit, and above all is a joy to be around … then they start laughing – hysterically. For you see, I am not much different than the other 188 Chris Carpenter’s roaming the United States these days. We share the same name, people regularly pepper us with hammer and nail jokes, and over the last year or so we have had to say repeatedly, “Yes, my namesake is quite a baseball player.”
I always thought I was the Chris Carpenter. After all, I was a two time Little League All-Star in my youth, received the good citizen award in high school, was the general manager of my college radio station, was the adjunct faculty member of the year at a junior college I taught at, and was the first person in my present department to break the fax machine. As you can see there have been a lot of the’s in my life. But all of them mean nothing because of what transpired in St. Louis recently. That is because a 31 year old St. Louis Cardinals baseball player bearing my name pitched a gem of a World Series game last week.
In the span of a few days, I went from being the Chris Carpenter to just another Chris Carpenter, one of five in my own state alone! How must the other 187 Chris Carpenter’s feel? What does the priest who does movie reviews named Chris Carpenter think? What about the surfer from St. Augustine, Florida? How will this affect Colorado pediatrician Chris Carpenter’s medical practice? The winemaker from California, the Oscar award winning cameraman named Chris Carpenter (The Mummy, Independence Day), the Broadway dancer from Brooklyn, New York, what do they think? We are no longer the Chris Carpenter.
Realizing I had forever lost my status to a person who won 21 games during the regular season, not to mention a play-off game, I was feeling a bit blue and out of sorts. But then I realized I am not alone. A quick Google search revealed there are 73 Bill Clinton’s roaming the United States (that is a scary thought but this is a non-political column). There are 75 Britney Spears, 124 Michael Jordan’s, and 72 Meg Ryan’s. Eighty-Seven Michael Jackson’s, 20 Jim Carrey’s, and 125 Robin Williams are probably reminded on a daily basis that they have a famous namesake too.
A bit more investigation revealed an Elvis Presley who has not left the building. He lives in Texas and is working as a hospital data supervisor. Marilyn Monroe is a retired politician from Iowa. Bob Dylan earns his living as a cashier at a Las Vegas casino. Even Muhamad Ali, who is revered as a legendary boxer, is also an aspiring neuroscientist in Minnesota.
Most people could care less that there is someone famous who shares the same name. Not me. When people pass me walking down the street, I desire nothing more than to have them stop and say, “There goes the one and only Chris Carpenter, the greatest soda drinker who ever lived.” Now, I can’t say that because I have come to the realization that perhaps one of these 187 other Chris Carpenter’s could be better. And that is a tough carbonated drink to swallow. I always wanted to be different, a person with limited Google entries, someone who is unique.
I don’t have to look very far in scripture to realize that I am unique. In fact, I am made in God’s likeness. In
it says, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them.”There is only one God and He made us in His image, whether male or female, each of us developing our own unique life-styles and expressing our own multi-dimensional personalities. In searching and finding who God is, we discover who we are, all different, yet having in common our oneness (not two-ness, three-ness, or in my case 189th-ness) in that we are all created as a reflection of our Creator.*
We find further proof of this concept in I Samuel 16:7. There, Samuel writes, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
God does not judge us as others judge us. He does not look at us for what we have achieved or how we look physically. Instead, He looks right inside us to see that each of us are a unique individual created by Him. He sees our potential and knows how it can most effectively be exercised. If we open ourselves to His leading, He will ensure we reach our fullest potential, making sure that we are using what He has given us to glorify Him.
In God’s eyes I am THE Chris Carpenter. There is no mistaken identity. I am who He made me to be. The other 187 Chris Carpenter’s are who He made them to be.
The same is true for you.
* Portions contained within this article from the Transformer Study Bible.
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