Week Twenty-Seven: Mirror/Face of God. July 2 – Seeing the Divine Image in Yourself

Gregg’s Reflection

Scripture tells us we were made in the image of God, and that living into the likeness of God is our challenge. We are mirrors, reflecting God’s grace on everything around us. Discover this.

I forget, more often than I’d like, that my truest identity isn’t my resume or my mistakes—it’s the image of God stamped in me. When I slow down enough to notice, grace breaks through: a quiet moment in prayer, a kind word from a friend, a small surge of joy that feels like home. In those moments I remember I’m loved first, before I do or prove anything.

Seeing myself this way changes how I move through the day. I don’t have to posture or protect as much; I can listen longer, forgive faster, and show up with a softer heart. Knowing I’m held lets me hold others more gently.

Of course, the world keeps trying to sell me other identities—producer, performer, fixer. So I keep returning to the well: “Whose am I?” From that answer flows the rest—my calling, my courage, my capacity to love.

Scripture

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

Psalm 34:5

Ancient Quotes

Who are you, O God, and who am I?

St Francis of Assisi, who asked himself this question repeatedly

The glory of God is a living human being; and the life of the human consists in beholding God.

Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, IV.20.7

Modern Quotes

If a child receives loving mirroring from mother and father, he develops more ‘mirror neurons‘ in brain and body and can more easily empathize with others. Some people cannot feel other peoples’ suffering, a condition which at its worst, creates sociopathic and psychopathic personalities. If you didn’t get that mirroring as a child, and you don’t relate easily to others’ pain, I urge you to build the daily practice of looking at Jesus on the cross.

Richard Rohr, Living School Teaching

When I feel my own pain, I touch my humanity. When I feel another’s pain, I touch the heart of God.

Anonymous

When we awaken to our true self in God, we discover that love is not something we achieve, but something we already are.

James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, p. 52

Journaling Prompts

• Where do you most forget that you bear God’s image?
  
  
• What practices help you return to your identity as “beloved”?
  
  
• How would believing this truth change the way you treat yourself today?
  
  
• Whose divine image in your life needs honoring with greater kindness?

👉 Go deeper into this week’s theme:
Read the full Week 27 Reflection: Mirror/Face of God