Reading
God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.” God created human beings; he created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature… God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!
Genesis 1:26-27, 31 (The Message)
Reflection
I get a kick out of regional accents. I mean, I hail from Texas, and there are probably five genres of them, not including all the sub-types. Depending on where you’re from, there’s even a chance we pronounce the word hail differently.
Enter: crayon.
Some say KRAY-on (like “neon”), others CRAN (like “ran”), and still others CROWN (like the thing a queen wears). However you say it (or however long you just spent sounding those out to yourself), it doesn’t matter too much.
What matters is the reminder Pastor Mark gave us: broken crayons still color. It’s a beautifully simple truism describing the complexity of our human condition. From the very beginning, God looked over all creation—humanity included—and called it good. That goodness still defines us, even in our brokenness.
It doesn’t matter what appearances we curate and craft in our external lives, each of us carries hurts, hang-ups, and histories which color in the stories of pain and brokenness we’d rather others not see, know, or hang up with a magnet on the fridge.
And yet, we are loved all the same.
We are named all the same.
We belong all the same.
Broken crayons still color.
We are God’s beloved—this is what defines who we are as individuals. Nothing else. Nothing else determines our worth or our purpose. What gives us life—color across the spectrum—is our making and our redeeming.
It is the Spirit of God come alive within us which moves and heals us so that the love and wholeness of Christ might be known and experienced by all people.
Remember that today. Not about other folks.
Remember it for you.
You bring life and art to the world, and the picture of you isn’t yet complete.
God still has work to do in you.
God still has work to do through you.
Prayer
You made me, God—
All of me.
You know my story and you know my shame.
And still…
You know me, God—
All of me.
You know the healing I’ve yet to trust as true,
And you know the scars I now bear from the wounds I carried.
And still…
You love me, God—
All of me.
And for today, let that be enough to hold me still.
Amen.
