To mark my first season of observing Lent, I sacrificed breakfasts — a small but daily reminder to set this time apart to focus on Jesus. I share this not to congratulate myself (Monday morning I was so hungry, I ate a buttery English muffin anyway). Rather, I aim to join others of the faith.

One hungry morning, I ignored my growling stomach to sit on the couch with my two young sons and read Sharon Creech’s novel, Love That Dog. Written in free verse, the story tells of a boy and his dog by mirroring well-known poems. Many were familiar, but one — a poem shaped like an apple — was new to me.

When I looked it up, I discovered that this kind of “concrete poem” seeks to convey meaning through visual patterns by forming a picture. Creech’s narrator writes a poem shaped like a dog.

My 7-year-old and I gave it a shot. Using mostly words, we drew two self-portraits on white paper. “Mom chickens words likes movies wants quiet space to write,” began the outline of my face.

“Asher is a head soft apple trees he sees…” Read the arc of my son’s forehead.

This was the same way the Bible says God created the world, I realized.

Way back when the earth was formless and void, Genesis 1 says that God spoke. Word by word, he composed creation, a world-shaped poem filled with plants and animals and people. Four thousand or so years later, the Apostle John, wrote of Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Jesus himself came as a concrete poem – living words that became flesh and blood to reveal the image of the Author.

But is this even possible? Could this whole earth — your life and mine — be the concrete words of an unseen poet?

The Apostle Paul thought so. “We are His workmanship,” he wrote in Ephesians 2:10. The word translated ‘workmanship’ comes from the Greek word poema, which actually means poem.

Just think about it. You and me, We are God’s poem.

Or ponder these words from author and apologist Ravi Zacharias, who supports the existence of God in his new book, Jesus Among Secular Gods, by asking, “Have I ever read poetry that no poet had written? Have I ever heard a song that no singer had sung or instrument played? Had I ever read a book that no author had ever written? Have I ever been loved when there was no one behind that love?”

In each instance, the answer points to an intentional, personal creator.

Just so, the Author of Easter sought to convey meaning through a visual pattern: the picture of a man-shaped God who bore our sorrows and carried our sins to the cross so that we might receive life eternal. Only, this poem — which tells the story of our redemption — was written in the shape of love.

Meadow Rue Merrill writes for children and adults from a little house in the big woods of midcoast

Maine. Her memoir, Redeeming

Ruth: Everything Life Takes, Love Restores, releases May 1. Connect at www.meadowrue.com