He took the fabric of the earth, the soil of creation and formed it into man.
His breath, His wish, His desire transformed that dirt into a miracle, the object of all His affections.
I've been told by better mothers, than I, that the thing they appreciate about me, as a parent, is that I go after the heart.
Outward behavior doesn't scare me for I know that if I can gain access into the heart of said child then we will be able to meet. I have never wanted for any of my children to ever put on outside airs for me or the church or the world. I want them to discover who it is they are and learn that they are loved and learn their choices will affect their path but never affect the fact that they are loved.
Their behavior, good or bad, does not make me a good mom or a bad mom. I don't lean upon them to define me as a good mother. If they achieve I am so happy for them, if they meet up with opportunities to learn how to overcome then I am their greatest cheer leader, if they struggle and fall I am their face cloth, if they rise up upon wings of eagles and take off and soar then I am ever watching the horizon and smiling with the greatest of delight.
I am their mom. They look like me. They look like my husband. They bear our image. They do so with no effort of their own. They grew in my womb, they are of my DNA and that of my husband's, nothing they do will ever affect that. It is said you can tell a Driscoll child from the crowd, even the blonde headed one.
Image...
Image. It can be tricky. Maintaining an image exhausting.
Living within an image, His image, understanding that it is that which reflects from me upon being born again, is exhilarating. Remade, refashioned, reformed into the image of the Living God. My flesh certainly gets in the way, my choices can cover me in the slop of the earth however I am still always that which I am, His.
His image. Born of His likeness. Becoming ever more like Him.
Yes, this the logo of the women's ministry of my church, Renovatus. It is that. For me it is also a line in the sand, a never ending circle of becoming.
Becoming.... Image.... Him...... Reflection... Reflecting Him more and more.... Being a living representation of His image... no grander thing will I ever do. I do that, bare His image, with no effort, and all effort ... all at the same time. I bare forth His image through His grace and through faith, and through choice and aligning myself with His great heart and His magnificent ways.
My heart breaks at times when I hear the stories of others, whether in ministry or not, anyone who lives with self imposed or community exacted expectations of image needs to shed those skins.
The world would be satisfied with cookie cutter people, people get comfort when they can think within their imaginations that those that lead them or serve them have whatever life gives the one thinking upon such things the greatest hope. Oh sure maybe in the back of our minds we remember that they are human but the concept of image can get so magnified in these places, that those that lead have no place to go for understanding, comfort, true friendship... It is one of the loneliest places I have ever born witness to as well as held others through.
Say nothing of me but know me.... let's break down some more of these walls together.... This post is about to get real.... very very real...... But you see not too long ago I sat in a hotel room by myself scrolling through lists of names but not knowing really who I could call, I am grateful for the few names within the hundreds that I actually had... and I'm sad for those who don't have that. I was grateful I did. I was aware of how many don't........
Amidst the realities of life we all falter.. we all walk with limps, with weights, with pain... amidst the reality of walking out faith we all hit speed bumps, detours, dead ends... what we do at that moment truly determines our future.... We are not called to put a smile on our face, dress ourselves in our church clothes and walk forward as if nothing is happening....
Suffering doesn't erode your testimony, struggling doesn't steal from your effectiveness, it makes you real.... There is no self-righteousness that doesn't get shone up for white washed tombs at some point. Just look at the news and all the fallen marquee players of church culture. There is only so far you can walk until that which is really there gets exposed. Propriety and the false expectations of the people hurl our leaders into places where if they ache, or struggle they are left to fear all the "what ifs.." This must cease....
There are no images to bear that are worth the death that they brand upon your heart and suffocate out your life..... There is nothing you can have done, or don't do, or whatever that is worth hiding behind a prison of self inflicted or community created need of an image for you. Are you an idol?
Listen... I know where I come from and I do know where I am going.. I know I stumble along the way and some of those stumbles have been huge pitfalls. But nothing... nothing has ever changed the fact that He is relentlessly pursuing me and He has fashioned and formed me and is forming me into His likeness. Not into the likeness that the women's board needs me to walk in, not into the image the deacons need me to be morphed into, ( I have neither in my life and am grateful that those around me truly just desire that I walk in the most of authentic Mims like ways.) I can not move into the image of anything other than Him.
It must be Him that we reflect.... We can not reflect the image of anything other then that which we are and walk in fullness of life... the facade will permeate every fabric of our being... leaving us hollow and empty... walking zombies not really living and not really dying... but morphed into something we were never created to become....
I walk where I do because I embrace the fact that but Him I would be sitting in a pile of pig poop... and but Him I would be laying face down in my own vomit... you can't pretty it up.... regardless of what you did or didn't do.. without Him our own righteousness is like filthy rags... with Him we are clothed in garments, whose beauty we can't even fathom.
Be released... release yourself... take a deep breath... step into becoming.... reflect His image... it is beautiful as it shines through you...
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known I Corinthians 13:12
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