The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

by Amy Hollingsworth

“And finally we offer our strengths and our weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows to Your never-ending care. Help us to remember all through our lives that we never need to do difficult things alone, that Your presence is simply for the asking and our ultimate future is assured by Your unselfish love. In our deepest gratitude we offer this prayer. Amen.”

Writer and apologist C. S. Lewis isn’t known for his philosophy on self-esteem or his musings on the legitimacy of feelings, but he did make an observation about Christians and their relationship to Christ that

I think Fred would agree with: “When they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”7 Many people feel they must surrender their personalities in order to become more Christlike. But Lewis further pointed out that “the deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which [Christ] has furnished him.”8 Surrendering our lives is not the same as relinquishing our God-given personalities. When we are in Christ, we will be more ourselves than ever. Encouraging others to be themselves, their honest selves, was the hallmark of Fred’s ministry here on earth. It was the best gift he could offer.

Fred rightly reasoned that if we accept ourselves we are better equipped to accept our neighbor. So accepting ourselves is always the starting point to something greater—a deeper maturity, a deeper walk with the Lord, and ultimately, a greater acceptance and understanding of our neighbor. This is the first of the toast sticks for the eyes: How we see ourselves affects how we see others.

Well, I would want [those] who were listening somehow to know that they had unique value, that there isn’t anybody in the whole world exactly like them and that there never has been and there never will be. And that they are loved by the Person who created them, in a unique way.

If they could know that and really know it and have that behind their eyes, they could look with those eyes on their neighbor and realize, “My neighbor has unique value too; there’s never been anybody in the whole world like my neighbor, and there never will be.” If they could value that person—if they could love that person—in ways that we know that the Eternal loves us, then I would be very grateful.