When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them.

Genesis 5:1-2

My friend, I have a gift for you. Here, take this box. Small, it fits in the palm of your hand. Wrapped in simple brown paper, but with an intricately beautiful bow. It feels warm, substantial, and it smells slightly of the Christmas tree pine it sat below. Inside, you won’t find things. There is nothing to consume or do. Instead, the gift is the ability to be. To breath deeply. To rest. To simply know that you are completely beloved, without having to do or say a single thing to prove yourself.

My dearest, you are created in the image of God. You bear the Creator’s thumbprint on your very soul. Your very existence has worthiness, for you bear God’s reflection in a way that is yours alone. The world would be less without this facet of God’s light. Simply by existing, you are helping to paint a more complete portrait of our Creator for humanity to see.

God, whose chosen definition is love, created you in that image. Love, embodied. The love you have written into the cells of yourself is what defines you. The direction of that love, the intensity of the shine, that is your gift back to the world. You don’t have to manufacture it, you don’t have to work to manifest it. Its simply an integral part of who you are.

And that love, it doesn’t all face outward. You are allowed to love yourself. Flaws and all. You are allowed to love your soft belly, the comfort it gives to the faces of young ones, pressed into it in a hug. You are allowed to love your arthritic fingers, well worn from years of engaging in the touch and physicality of this world. You are allowed to love your imperfect vision, because the glasses that bring it into focus remind you to be aware of the lenses you view the world through in other ways. You are allowed to love the difficulty you have ha focusing lately, for it reminds you that the cares of this world matter, that the task at hand isn’t the only important thing you carry. You are even allowed to love your depression- the heavy blanket that dulls the colors and makes your days like wading through snowdrifts. Perhaps it, too, has lessons to teach.

We as humans were created to do things. We were given a divine calling, to care for this earth. But. Before we even started, at the instant of our first breath, we were beloved. We were called good. We were enough. The work is for our own good, to occupy the spark of the Creator that lives in our own souls. It does not prove our worth, or our worthiness. Stepping away from that work to rest is also Biblical. Stepping away for a Sabbath, a day or even longer, reminds us of the heartbeat of love that existed before our hands got busy.

Too often, we view our role as citizens of the Kingdom of God as a responsibility. We see the injustice of the world, the pain and suffering of those we interact with as our job. Things we have to fix in order to prove God’s truth. Yet God is sufficient. God uses us, but is not dependent on us. We do because we are loved, not as a way to earn that love.

Today, my challenge to you is to lean in to your identity as a human being. Doing is not a part of that. Rest in the miracle of your creation, your belovedness. And for today, let that simple truth be enough,