imago Dei

Searching For Words

What words can you share with those embracing the most painful moment of their lives? Is there any right words to offer? Any precise Bible verse or poem that would erase the pain and the sense of loss when a loved one passes? Many of us try to offer something to give hope, to comfort or to fill in that awkward silence when we come to meet the grieving face to face. It might end up being awkward, or unbeknownst hurtful to those that are deeply missing the one they loved.

I have heard many of these hurtful phrases myself as well as from the grieving, the group of people whom I have found myself recently aiding through their grief as a volunteer grief counselor. What always happens as they share what people have said that hurt them, was their appreciation that at least someone would approach them and offer something. Their deepest hurts came from those who they thought would have come forward to share a word, were surprisingly silent. The silence hurt more, than the awkward phrases.

I find myself here in this place now over the passing of a newborn within our extended family. My head cannot grasp any meaning that I can offer to say or to write to the young couple. In this modern age of AI and medical advancements, how is this possible? But, I stop myself from considering all the possibilities and sensibilities of how and why God has allowed this, to the realization; I just don’t know. And I can be okay with not knowing, and I can be okay with just offering an “I sorry” to the couple. I am grieving and sad, as is the whole extended family, as someone we never met in person as we live apart from the couple, has brought us grief and affected our lives by his very existence. He was and is created in the image of God, the Imago Dei. He took a breath and met his mom and dad, grandparents, brother, and his cousin, all who were able to hold him and see him as a reflection of both his parents. His life was brief, but he was loved, named and precious as all babies are, yet his life was too short.

So much happens in this life, both good, and bad, joyful and sad, that are lives seem to be a continuous rollercoaster ride of emotions. There is also so much we do not and will not understand this side of Heaven. When we try to make sense of all this, we can find it impossible to find peace, but only when we surrender our needing to know and replacing it with not knowing, we find the peace we look for. When we simply trust God, we can find peace. Trust isn’t always easy, especially when are hearts are breaking and our minds are reeling, but simply speaking out loud to God and telling Him “I don’t understand this, my heart is breaking, but yet I will trust you”

A verse comes to mind from the Gospel of Mark, from a distraught father who asked Jesus to heal his son and Jesus told him everything was possible if you believe. The father’s response “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief” (Mark 9:24 NIV). There are many times when I need to repeat this, I Do belief Jesus, but help my unbelief. He gets it. He understands. He wept over His friend Lazarus’ death. He wept over the city of Jerusalem. He became one of us and felt the pain we feel. We can trust Him with our pain and our grief, even when there are no words. He knows our pain and offers comfort beyond any words we can offer to others, or receive from others. He is the peace we seek. God Bless- Nancy

Value Added

What is it that you value? Your home? Your family? Your work? Your bank account? Your self? The list is probably limitless and varies from person to person. It can be strange to think of valuing our selves, but why not? We certainly aren’t value less. God has created mankind in his image. The Imago Dei. in the image of God. We are beautiful and capable and wonderfully made. We are not just a bunch of cells that dragged ourselves out of a pool of brackish water to rise to the creative humans we are today. We create, we think, we protect, we rationalize, we cry, we get angry, we feel sad, we feel overwhelming joy, we see beauty, we sing and make music. We write plays and produce films. We write songs and symphonies. We paint and we draw. We build houses and cities. All because we are made in the image of a creative and holy God, who displays emotions, love us deeply, and protects and provides. He created the sunsets, stars, mountains and flowers. And He loves all mankind deeply, beyond what we are able to perceive. He gives us grace and mercy when we don’t deserve it. He asks us to love Him and love our fellow man.

We miss so much when we don’t value others. When we don’t see others as made in the image of God. In fact, we often devalue others. We define the unborn children as mere cells and tissues. We label those with handicaps as having a less life, a less quality of life, and we often choose to judge our quality of life, or a normative life as the standard for quality of life. We believe the lies that older people are past their usefulness and aren’t worth saving when they get sick or injured. We value even less those with mental and intellectual disabilities, and in some places choose to abort babies that might have such a disability in utero. We see people as products of the flesh, of an animal nature, but we are not animals. We have the gift of self-realization and awareness, that animals do not posses. We have the ability to communicate with God and reflect Him.

Sometimes, when we aren’t feeling very valuable, we try to add value to ourselves. Maybe through a promotion at work, a new car, a larger home, a title, a college degree, a marriage, a relationship, a bigger bank account, or changing our physical appearance. But, in reality, we don’t need any of these add- ons, we are already valued and loved by God. We are not just “enough” we are more than just “enough” we are God’s beloved. – God Bless You, Nancy

Do you think you are beautiful? Has anyone ever told you that you are beautiful? Do you think of the beautiful person that God has created in His image; Imago Dei, in the image of God, as you?

Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t. Maybe you are struggling at this very moment to believe that you are beautiful. You feel ugly. You believe those feelings and you start to think along with being ugly, you quite possibly are unlovable. Maybe even God is disappointed in you. Others are beautiful, desirable, lovable. You might believe the lie that somehow even God doesn’t love you.

Maybe your parents even told you these lies. And you can’t help but find plenty of other people to hold up as the beauty standard; the lovable standard. The magazine covers and social media post that unashamedly use filters that are the goals according to culture. Maybe you were abused or objectified. You thought it was love, but it was just a short- termed lie. It left you feeling worse about yourself.

It probably started while you were young; when the people closest to you made comments that you took to heart. Comments that you believed about yourself. Or maybe it was abuse and you turned on yourself, hating what God had made. Your prettiness. Your handsomeness. You felt the blame fall upon you and maybe you tried to harm yourself. To make the pain and hurt go away.

I feel you. I get it. I’ve felt it too. The ugliness that I believed about myself. That I was not worth love. I was scarred from an accident as a child. It left me different than the others girls. I was also born with a birth mark. I hid my body. I was ashamed. I certainly did not think of myself as beautiful. I never heard it from my parents. Just once I remember overhearing a conversation my mom was having with someone and heard her say I was beautiful on the inside. Was that a complement? It’s hard to register as a middleschooler going through that awkward stage. it took me years into my adulthood before I could look into the mirror and declare that I was loved by God. The hurt and the wounds were deep.

What brings me to write this today was an article I read online from a Christian author. It was her opinion that we should stop telling women they are beautiful and focus on how we are all so fortunate that given our miserable state as sinners that God should even offer us salvation. She also added that we should stop telling the women at women’s conferences that they are special and loved by God. That to do so is all wrong and we should shift only to the spiritual elements of Christianity. This is not word for word of what she said, but the idea of it. She believed we are not so special. We should not feel we are. But, wait just a minute. Then why does the Bible speak so much of beauty?

To dismiss that we are created in the image of God is an affront to God. Read the first chapter of Genesis. God said His creation was very good. Body shame and the need to cover up came after the Fall, (Genesis 2:25, 3:7).

After the Fall, Adam and Eve looked at themselves and knew they were naked. They felt shame. They wanted to hide. This was the beginning of body shame and the beginning of death. Our bodies fall prey to old age and disease. And if you are older like me, you know this all too well. But we still try to cover up this aging process and look to make ourselves beautiful by the world’s standards.

I think that is what was troubling the writer of the article I read. Too much focus on the outward appearance and not meeting the world’s standard. But, for some people, myself included, we need to hear that we are loved and beautiful. It is not a sign of weakness. We all should be reminded that despite how we look, God finds us beautiful. He creates us and knits us together (Psalm 139). Some of us have scars. Some of us are born without limbs, or hearing, or sight. But. We Are Beautiful. And our physical bodies should not be treated with any contempt.

When we die, we will be resurrected in real bodies. Not floating, wispy, cloudy images. Jesus resurrected and has a real body. Read the end of the Gospels. He still ate with His disciples.

The Romans believed the body in its physical sense was evil. Women’s bodies were deemed worse than a man’s. It was a real shock for the early church in Ephesus to read Paul’s words that “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” Ephesians 5:28, NIV. Paul added that the husbands should care for wives as the husbands cared for their own bodies. The body as Paul reasoned was not bad and would be resurrected to new life, a belief the gentiles did not hold to.

Should we treat our own physical bodies as if they do not matter? Should we ignore the millions of people who want to hear that they are loved by God? That God has created them with beauty and they can look into the mirror with confidence that they are beautiful, despite their less then social media perfection bodies. and that they can agree with God that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by God and He declares it very good.

We should celebrate and Praise God for freeing us from sin and shame, even body shame. And celebrate that He did love the world so much that He sent His very Son to redeem it. We are in the world. He loves us. He declares that the physical body is worth redeeming along with the spiritual body. It is not bad; it is beautiful. You are beautiful. – God Bless You Nancy,