May I see your I.D. please?” asks the efficient, friendly
cashier at Party City. I hold up my
driver’s license to verify that I am, indeed, the person listed on my credit
card. She quickly scans my “IDENTITY”
l- aid bare right there on my blue driver’s license. The tiny DMV photograph of me 8 months
pregnant, my height, my fudged pre-pregnancy weight, my address, my
restrictions. My IDENTITY defined in
numbers and a distorted image. This is
our society. This is our natural bent. To judge others IDENTITY based on numbers,
images, and the neighborhoods in which they live.
Around Easter our pastor spoke on the resurrected body that
believers in and followers of Jesus Christ will someday possess. With an air of curiosity and caution he shared
that the Bible has little to say about our resurrected bodies but that much
could be learned from Jesus’ resurrected body.
Based on His body, we learn that our own resurrected, physical bodies
will look very different from the ones we possess now (Jesus was unrecognizable on the road to Emmaus). Yet, it will be something
about our spirit that will eventually give away our IDENTITY. We will be recognized not by how we look but
by who we are on the inside. Seems
fitting when we remember that God was never really too concerned about our
outside anyway. “The Lord does not look
at the things man looks at. Man looks at
the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).”
I love to imagine reunions in heaven. And I love the idea that our physical, new
bodies will be so different that they confuse others but that our spirits will
give us away. I know many people whose
numbers and images meet with criticism here on Earth. I certainly criticize my own a good bit of
the time. Yet our spirits are more
beautiful than those celebrity faces found on the cover of People
magazine. And some day our souls’ IDENTITY
will shine radiant in our resurrected bodies.
I will recognize those I love by what I cherished in them all along - who they were on the inside. And they will shine radiant, beautiful.
So today I think I will cultivate my inside - hoping that someday
it will become my one great IDENTITY.
And as for my children - may the beauty of their insides outshine their
physical appearance. May they know that
their IDENTITY rests in so much more than numbers and images…..
Linking up today over at www.thegyspymama.com with the prompt "identity." Will you join me too?
No comments:
Post a Comment