"You've Lost Your Muchness"

“You’ve lost your muchness”.  These are the words the Mad Hatter speaks to Alice in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010).  After approximately a decade, she had been called back into Wonderland to slay the Jabberwocky.  There was conflict amongst the characters, and even with Alice herself, as to whether or not she, in fact, was the real Alice.

I wonder how many of us, if transported into our own Wonderland of celestial courts, and angelic presences in eternity would be confronted with the same issue.  Have we lost our muchness?

Has the little girl who wanted to be a doctor and now serves as the head of an HR department or administrative assistant to someone or other lost her muchness?  Has the little boy who dreamed of being a preacher, yet is now thriving financially as an attorney lost his muchness?  And what about you?  Have years of negative comments and toxic influences caused you to shut away your true self and rob of you of your muchness?  How many people in this world of 8 billion and counting are walking around living lives without muchness? 

Your muchness is not a title.  Its not a 6-figure salary.  Its not the right clothes, jewelry, or car.  It’s the substance of your very being, a conglomerate of one’s personality, dreams, aspirations, character, decisions, and more.  In short, your muchness is you who truly are. 

There are many reasons for having lost one’s muchness.  Some were born into unfortunate situations and passed through a careless state system until they reached adulthood without their muchness.  Some were abused until their muchness was beaten out of them.  Some were verbally and emotionally attacked until they no longer believed their muchness mattered.  Some have merely been overwhelmed by the currents of life that they allowed their muchness to be unknowingly swept from them while they tried to stay afloat.  How you lost it does not matter.  What matters is to get it back.

 So how do you get your muchness back?  You have to go back.  Back to before you received incorrect information about yourself.  Back to before you were verbally or physically abused.  Back to before you allowed vain aspirations and ambitions to drive you from what you yearned to be into someone you no longer recognize.  You must go back to your purity; your innocence and start over again. 

Maybe quitting your job or leaving your place of abode isn’t the answer.  Maybe you just need to change the way you live, instead of where and what you live.  Your muchness has more to do with you than with what you do. 

If you are a doctor or lawyer, instead of focusing on your extravagant paycheck, focus on the people coming to you for medical and legal help.  If you are a housewife, focus on how to make your dwelling an oasis instead of why it’s a hellhole.  Cherish your spouse like you did before you said “I do”.  Lavish your children in the love you first felt towards them at their birth.  Decorate and spruce up your home with the same enjoyment you did as when you first purchased it.  Look in the mirror and see the image of God instead of something that may not line up with the magazines and advertisements.  Change your attitude and your mindset towards these things, and the things themselves will be bound to feel and eventually exert a change themselves. 

Remember what God has said of you.  That He knit you together in your mother’s womb and knows your inmost parts.  That He has plans for you of good and hope and a future.  That He craves your presence as a lover craves the attention of the object of their affection.  If that does not aim you at your muchness, I don’t know what will. 

Only what God thinks and says of you matters.  It is nice to have the approval of man as well as a notable reputation, yet it is a definite second to God’s approval and opinion of you.  The level of you muchness should be His, not man’s.  And at times, it should not even be yours.  Oftentimes, we can be too hard on ourselves, or not hard enough.  We humans do not always get the balance right.  We curse ourselves for the things we cannot help, and excuse ourselves for the things we can.  That can certainly alter one’s muchness.  Our muchness standard should only be His. 

Once you gain your muchness, you must fight to keep it.  Rememeber it.  Make it known.  Without your muchness, the world is deprived of the spot and position that only you and your muchness should fill.  And should you die without your muchness, the grave becomes the largest composite of the world’s greatest treasures because, like you, many others have died without their muchness being exerted in life.  What a shame!  The world will never be able to see your muchness, unless you live it out. 

So I ask you: if you were transported into your own ethereal Wonderland, could you be able to say you’ve lived out your muchness?