Barbie

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5.8

There was a line in a song that we sang in the Holiday Club which bothered me: "You may not be perfect but you're perfectly OK..." Really? Whatever happened to our need for a Saviour? A resolution to my dilemma came from an unexpected source: the Barbie film which our younger (grown-up!) children insisted we watch. On the surface it is a benign romp through the fantasy world of generations of girls brought up on Barbie - dolls, videos, "merch" - with their brothers watching on. But, like all the best children's stories, it is laced with wit, humour and double entendre. And the message I came away with was that people are most authentic when they are authentically themselves; not conforming to stereotypes or seeking to control others.

This took me back to another song from a much earlier Holiday Club, which is all about how creatures praise their Creator through being the fish, birds and animals he created them to be. And we humans? In our fallen state we certainly do need a Saviour while, in our being children of God and made in his image, are we not perfectly OK - if we would just stop trying to be something/ somebody else!