You cannot be erased

The body slumps in the chair

Every inch protesting at life

Tired

Beaten down

By events that rip and tear

By abuse and fear

Hatred and greed

Their minds echo the sad refrain

I am nothing

Nothing

I am not enough

I deserve what I am getting

God hates me

They have been told this too many times

By fists that have battered

Words that have scorned

You are stupid

You can’t do it

You are a whore

A loser

And even those who talk gospel

Have had no gospel

Only more demands

More calls to sacrifice, to become less

How can you become less when you are nothing?

And yet

Deep down

A spark of the divine still glows

That true self

That created to be

Self

Still lives

The Sacred is present,

even this one so battered

so shaped by the sin and misery of this world

and even the smallest fragment of this divine presence is enough

be it as small as a mustard seed

to begin again

to, with the Sacred

be birthed again

Christ speaks

In that dark, almost empty space

You are a child of God, believe it!

You are God’s daughter

You are God’s son

You, that you I imaged from the beginning of all creation

That true you

Cannot be erased

God loves you

God wants to do his new thing

In your life

Yes

Yours

Water in the desert

See it

Believe it!

________________________________________________

Isa 43:1-3, 19

But now, this is what the Lord says —

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

 For I am the Lord, your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

1 John 3:1

How great is the love God has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!