“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” ~Genesis 1:26-27
“But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’" ~Romans 9:20
Who has not spent a lot of time in front of a mirror, analyzing their reflection, and then doing something to clean up their image? I doubt I’m the only one. It is time to collect my thoughts about my skin, a very timely topic.
I have often wondered how people looked in antediluvian times: that is, before the worldwide flood of Noah. This colossal supernatural super-disaster claimed the lives of billions of people and left only eight measly individuals standing, along with an assortment of animals that were carefully selected and collected to live beyond the disaster. The gene pool was significantly reduced for humanity, to say the least. There could have been people with purple hair among Adam and Eve’s descendants, who didn’t have it from applying some sort of hair coloring -- they were born that way! But all the people with purple hair, or the gene that caused it, would have been wiped out in the flood.
Hair is a part of the largest organ of the body -- our skin. For the most part, people do not see our other organs. If we’re fortunate, our hearts, kidneys, livers, lungs, and most of our bones are not available for viewing. Even our fat, while making us bulky, is still covered with our skin.
Our epidermis makes us recognizable to other humans, and it is our first line of defense from foreign agents that would harm us. Without our skin, we would look pretty ghastly! You might have the most beautiful eyes ever, but if we saw them turning freely in a skeletal socket, we would not recognize you at all.
When I was born, my hair was sparse and fine, and well, baby soft. In my 20’s and 30’s, my hair was long and brown, and it had a bit of a wave to it. It was still soft and fine, like my Spanish grandmother’s. Now I have less of it again, but it is still soft and fine. It turned gray, like my Greek grandfather’s hair, so that it sparkles in the light. Unfortunately, we have hard water where we live, and everything turns rusty very quickly. So when my hair turned gray, the rusty water began to change the color of my hair and now it’s a lighter brown with orange highlights. Whether or not that is desirable, you might recognize me by that description.
You might also recognize me by my skin conditions. While I’m not in the same boat as Job, I have at least four skin conditions that drive me crazy, including psoriasis, which, I’m told, is hereditary. During the ten years that my legs were covered with open, bleeding sores and scaly skin, if I ever wore shorts or capris, some poor honest child would sympathetically cry out, “What did you do to your leg!” Now, I have a wonderful dermatologist, from Africa, by the way, who has worked out an effective treatment for that stubborn psoriasis for me, and I am no longer plagued by the constant itching. Praise God!
You might recognize my fingernails. They have always been weak and thin, and because of my underlying psoriasis, they are ridged. I’ve always, always, always bitten off my fingernails, and I have often bitten off skin too. (Sound gross?) But I do, because I detest hangnails.
You may recognize me by the saggy skin under my chin, and the stuff under my arms that looks like an upside-down biceps. One of the first things that disappointed me about the aging process was the saggy elbows. My mom had that, but I always thought I could keep the great tight skin at my elbows. Not to mention that my skin doesn’t look great in the belly area anymore. After eight kids, there are some permanent stretch marks … but I generally don’t like swimming, so you won’t see them.
But then there are the other wrinkles on my forehead and at the ends of my eyes. Some of these happened because we practiced heightening our facial expressions for Drama Classes every day at our house. It was rather habitual, though, whether or not there was a play in the works -- smiling sweetly, laughing uproariously, and frowning sternly just happened and the accumulated family facial communications produced desirable lines that you could accent when it was time to apply stage make-up.
For identification purposes, if something tragic should ever happen and my body is found in a ravine, be sure to look for a certain red mole that my husband knows about. I also have other various spots too numerous to mention, from the “J” scar on my left index finger to various small sores that never heal quickly. My toenails are orange from the same rusty water. I have no tattoos, but I have two former earring holes that haven’t been used in many years so they have grown closed. I don’t know much about my back. You’ll have to ask my husband about that.
Okay, so you want to know, perhaps, what color my skin is? You’ve been in suspense the whole time trying to figure that out? That’s a good question! I am green. That is, I have an “olive complexion.” And in the words of Kermit the Frog, “It’s not easy being green!”
In the 1970s, in USAF Basic Military Training (BMT), women recruits did not have to shoot the M-16, but they did have to wash and iron their own uniforms, and they had to take a make-up class. I have never liked the feeling of makeup on my skin, so this was definitely not my favorite part of BMT. Being short, I really thought I could just sink down in my chair and remain unnoticed by that instructor as she scanned the class looking for a guinea pig with greenish tones to their skin. But it did not work -- she spied me and I was required to sit quietly while she put orange stuff on my green skin to counteract the green and make my skin more neutral. It was a little pointless because none of my other classmates were green and able to learn how to do their makeup from my example. And I couldn’t see what she was doing.
Relieved when she told us we were not required to wear make-up in the military, I totally put that behind me, and I’ve only had a few close brushes with cosmetics since then.
The color green is in none of the songs about skin color, such as “Red and yellow, black and white, They are precious in His sight.” I could only categorize myself with the color white. Even more modern versions of “Jesus Loves the Little Children” have brown, and still have white, but no green. But that’s okay because my green is a pretty light hue. And who has ever found the true color of their skin in a box of crayons? Peach just isn’t right.
All I can say is, like King David says in Psalm 139, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” My skin is not perfect, but it is carefully crafted. The same genes that give me dry and itchy skin as an adult also spared me from the wonders of acne as a teenager. I did have a bout of psoriasis on my face for a while that gave me a taste of what it would have felt like, though. And my itchy skin gives me a kinship with Job. In reading his lament in the Bible, I could fully identify with him, but on a smaller scale, and I just know I would have been nicer to him than his friends, who judged him as a sinner just because he was covered with painful boils from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet. I’m sure I would’ve whined a bit too.
In the end, my epidermis is so much more than its basic color! Under our skin and hair, the organs in our bodies are all the same colors, and our blood is consistently red. If I told you my height and my current weight now, you should be able to pick me out in a crowd.
In 2020, we Americans were required to fill out census forms, and there’s always a question these days about race. Here’s my answer: according to Genesis, I belong to the race of Man, created on the sixth day. There is no other. But I have a Maker, a Divine Potter, who put the finishing touches on me, His project, by adding color to my skin, and I like it! As with all of Mankind, I am made to be like Him, and that thought is simply awesome!
“This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.” ~Genesis 5:1-2
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