"In Our Image"

People love to complicate things. Have you ever noticed that? A slight difference in opinion can lead to hours of useless debate. We get locked into our mindset and start seeing things in black and white, right and wrong. And, of course, our opinion/belief is always the right one.

I think that's why people get all tangled up about Who God Is.

I like to say that we little hooman beans see things as, "either, or," and God is infinite, so He looks at "either" and "or" and just says, "and." He's outside our limited black-and-white viewpoints.

If that makes sense.

I think this is why we get confused about the Trinity idea. I mean, is He three or is He one?

Obviously He's both, but that's hard to understand when we live in a world where something can be three, or one, but not both.

I think I was in middle school or early high school when I first started to get the idea of God being one and three. I remember being at a home school co-op where we had split into two sides, one arguing Muslim beliefs and the other side Christian ones. One of the Islam advocates brought up the issue of Christianity's "three gods" and all the advocates of Christianity went into a tizzy trying to explain themselves all at once. I remember thinking, This is so much simpler than what they're trying to say.

In the bedlam of shouted opinions, no one but the teacher heard mine, but she affirmed it, which gave me confidence.

My thought was this:

We are made "in God's image." People take that to mean all sorts of things, such as physical appearance, a knowledge of morals, etc. But I think it means the way our bodies, minds, and souls/hearts/emotions are put together. We have three parts, but each of us is only one person.

For instance, I can be washing dishes, crying over a friend's breakup, and thinking about my plans for the weekend all at once. I'm doing three completely unrelated things, but that doesn't mean my brain has hopped out of my skull or my soul is somewhere far away.

That is, I believe, how the Trinity works.

I tend to think of Father God as the mind of God. He's the planner, the logic behind the entirety of everything.

Jesus is obviously the body- the physical form/aspect of God.

And I'd see the Holy Spirit as God's form of soul. He's the part of God that softens hearts and heals emotional scars/wounds.

Some people would split this up into different parts such as "body, soul, and spirit." I don't want to get all technical here. In fact, I have no guarantee that this idea is theologically correct at all!

But it's the only explanation of the Trinity of God that I've heard that is relatively understandable (at least to me) without being oversimplified. Obviously God is bigger and more complex than any "hooman bean," but since we are "made in God's image," which literally just means we resemble Him, I feel like looking at the way He put us together can help us understand how He operates.

Again, I'm not a well-versed theologian or anything. These are just my thoughts, but I think maybe God gave them to me, so I'll pass them on just in case.

~Dolly

Risen

I love Easter. Chocolate, bunnies, . . . chocolate bunnies . . . and overall hoppiness. Family photos, suits and dresses. A cross and a tomb. . .

I was about to say "life and death," but I realized that's backwards from God. He usually works that way.

But we see a certain order of things: We live and then we die.

In reality, we start dying at birth. Our bodies grow and then decay, but all the time we stay on this rotting planet. Until we finally die . . . and then we start to live! Like, I seriously can NOT wait for Heaven, ya'll! I mean, I don't plan to kill myself, but I also don't wanna stay on this Earth any longer than I have to.

Some people think I'm morbid when I say that, but all I want to do is stop dying and start living! I'm tired of being sick and weak, both physically and emotionally. Tired of being hurt, tired of having to try so hard, every day, to live the way I am meant to.

I'm stinkin' tired!

I think Mary Magdalene got tired too.

Can you imagine how exhaustingly hopeless it must be to be nothing but a shell holding seven demons? To be ignored and looked down on, completely avoided. To just want to feel better. To be unable to fix yourself?

I feel that all the time. I'm not possessed, and I'm not really ostracized, but sometimes I feel like just a shell holding my ridiculous emotions and sad mind. And I can't fix it and I can't just feel better.

But Jesus healed Mary. And she followed Him everywhere.

She listened to Him. She worshiped Him.

 And He died! The one thing in her life that had power, the one person she trusted completely. . . He left her. What would happen? Would the demons come back? Would she return to the worthless shell she had been before? She was already looked down on- she couldn't be trusted because she was a woman. But at least she was free inside.

But now Jesus was gone- death had claimed Him and He would never come back. She could never ask all the questions she still didn't have answers to; never again tell Him she loved Him. He had broken her trust by leaving, and she couldn't even tell Him because He was dead. Dead!

So as soon as Sabbath was over she went to Him. She brought the best of her spices and preparations, to do one last thing for the man who had healed her. She went to grieve, and was met with horror.

Someone had taken the body of her Lord!

She ran for help, and when Peter and John had no answers, she collapsed and wept. Angels spoke to her, but that didn't matter in the face of her bitter hurt and grief.

Nothing was right; everything was upside-down. It had been all wrong before, but this was unthinkably tangled up. And then. . .

"Mary."

And she realized that it was true- Jesus is God.

At the moment when all hope is absolutely and utterly obliterated. Jesus lives.

He lives, you guys!

And instead of trying to survive here on this little rock, waiting for, and dreading, the day that everything's over . . . We. Can. Live!

That's what I wanted to say this Easter.

~Dolly