GOD’S HEALING GRACE: Recognized, Received, Reflected: Part 1

Recognizing God’s Grace

There is no question that as we move through our days of life, we experience both beauty & suffering. When we find ourselves in a season of pain & suffering, it is often a challenge to find our way back to the goodness & the beauty life offers. It is a temptation to give up & to doubt that there is beauty in our life when pain & suffering come upon us. Suffering & pain demand so much attention that it is difficult to be patient & believe that beauty is part of life.

Pain & suffering in our life comes in so many different forms such as: death & destruction perpetrated against God’s creation in the form of fires, air & water pollution that kills Gods creation, pain & suffering that we perpetrate against one another causing illness, loneliness, anger, fighting, violence toward one another, bullying, exclusion, hatred, vengeance, injustice, & racism. Whether it is destruction or neglect that causes pain & suffering against God’s creation or pain & suffering against God’s created people, what we do know, is that if it causes pain & suffering it is not God’s will for His creation.

We read in the Holy Bible, that at the beginning of time, God’s Holy Spirit swept over the face of the waters & all life was formed: water, land, light, darkness, plants & every living creature. God then created humankind & made them in His own image, blessed them & charged them to be fruitful, multiply & fill the earth & have dominion over all the earth & every living thing. God saw all He had created in His image & declared it was all good.

All of God’s creation was created to reflect His image. As we read of God’s creation, there is no mention of brokenness, pain, disease, illness, vengeance, hate, or racism. Life was created by God to reflect His very image, His very nature, that of beauty, compassion, gentleness, forgiveness, inclusion, kindness, justice, wholeness & unconditional love. God’s very nature brings healing, wholeness & beauty to creation, for it is beauty & wholeness that reflects God’s image, not suffering & pain. God’s will for all of creation is beauty & wholeness.

In spite of the brokenness, pain & suffering that exists & does not reflect the image of God in which all life was created to reflect, God Himself reaches out & with the love of His heart in action, He brings healing & beauty into our life by offering us His undeserved Grace. Grace & truth is God’s heart unveiled, God’s love in action. When we experience healing & beauty, we know without a doubt that we are in the presence of God. In His Grace, God’s unveiled heart, bathes us & blesses us, offering healing & wholeness, unconditionally. Through His Grace, God longs for & empowers us to recognize, receive & then reflect His image outward to others, bringing into our lives the beauty of His image in which we were created.

~Posted by Rev Kathryn Bindig, MDiv. MS; Pastoral Care Minister with assistance from Rich Muscatello; Director of Business Development & Strategy