One of the things I have noticed, both in my own life and in the lives of the people I work with, is how quickly we reduce ourselves.
We reduce ourselves to our diagnoses. To our histories. To the patterns we have developed in response to pain. To the roles we have learned to play. To the versions of ourselves that other people seem most comfortable with.
And somewhere in the process of all that reduction, we lose sight of something essential.
The Scriptures open with a declaration that is both simple and staggering. Human beings are made in the image of God. Not some human beings. Not the ones who have it together. Not the ones who have achieved something remarkable. All of us.
I find that I need to return to this truth regularly. Because the world is very good at offering alternative accounts of what we are.
Psychology offers one account. Neuroscience offers another. Culture offers several more. And while many of these accounts contain genuine insight, none of them is sufficient on its own.
Perhaps this is why Jesus so often withdrew to quiet places. Not because He needed another framework. Not because He required another technique. But because relationship with the Father was the source from which everything else flowed.
I wonder if we make life more complicated than it needs to be. I wonder if much of what we are searching for begins with creating space to be with God. To pause. To listen. To pray. To become still enough to notice His presence.
The older I get, the less interested I am in having every answer and the more interested I am in remaining close to Him. Because it is in His presence that truth is revealed. It is in His presence that identity is restored. It is in His presence that healing begins. And perhaps becoming whole is less about fixing ourselves and more about learning to dwell with the One who made us.