This message still has my mind going crazy...

Wednesday was an interesting day. After being completely over-whelmed emotionally, and having an over-crowded mind, I sat through a message that I am thinking will change my life forever; it is titled Gender Identity(correct me if I am wrong P.Joe).

The question that was posed at the beginning was, "What does it mean to be a man or woman?". Automatically my brain is trying to race for an answer, when I realized, I had no clue. The world has come up with this distorted idea of what it means to be a man or woman.

Most every child grows up with an unrealistic idea about what perfection is in a person. For example, Barbie and G.I. Joe. Little did we all know that if either of these "icons" were really living, they would be so unattractive and un-proportioned that they would not even be able to function as normal people.

There is that lie that no matter what, we will never look good enough. The world will say that the way we look will NEVER be okay. These unrealistic heights are set in our minds and we will drive ourselves crazy trying to reach them.

I personally have struggled with "Well, when I look like this I will be happy." "When I look this way, I will believe it when someone calls me beautiful." (Please, no one leave a comment concerning this, because I didn't write it for someone to say something.) So I was in this mindset, and then of course, P. Joe pulled the following scripture:

Genesis 1:27
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

bum...Bum...BUUUMM...

Great, I have heard/read this scripture SO many times but never really thought about it. This scripture is saying that every part of me, whether I like it or not, was made in the image of God. That means that when I look down on me, I look down on Him--oh boy.

Okay, so now I know you are waiting on the answer to the question previously stated. "What does it mean to be a man or woman?" The truth is, it is being able to recognize the image of God in you. That means, it is looking past you and seeing what really matters, the God in us.

(:

Also, the crazy part of this is that Tuesday night when I was praying, God told me the following: "Breath easy my child. I have created you the way you are for great purpose and reason. Do not try and change what I have made. You look at things like they are difficult, but you are looking at you, not Me. Breathe easy my child." Isn't that just ironic!