Familiar Faces: Are We Messengers of the Divine?

By: Astrid Sarmiento a.k.a Lil Poetrid

One of the most beautiful concepts I carried with me from growing up in a religious home was learning that we were all created in the image of God.

As a child, one of the teachings that stood with me the most came from Matthew 25:35, when Jesus says:

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."

The passage continues with the people asking:

"When did we see you hungry or thirsty?"

His answer is simple:

"Whatever you did for one of the least of these... you did for me."

I've always found that idea extraordinary because it suggests that the people who cross our paths are never merely interruptions to our day.

Every stranger carries a dignity that deserves to be recognized, and every act of kindness reaches farther than we can see.

As I've grown older, I've found myself returning to that passage in unexpected moments.

I believe God speaks to us every day through signs, symbols, nature, and perhaps most often, through people.

Maybe you don't identify as religious. Perhaps your language is different. You might call it the universe, divine timing, synchronicity, intuition, or simply a higher power at work.

Whatever name you give it, I wonder if we've all experienced those moments when a complete stranger says exactly what we needed to hear, or when a seemingly ordinary encounter lingers in our hearts long after the person is gone.

We spend much of our lives believing that anyone whose story we don't know is a stranger. But I've begun to wonder if familiarity has less to do with recognition and more to do with resonance.

When my father passed away, I began noticing things I might have otherwise overlooked.

One afternoon, I got into an Uber. The radio was playing Luke Combs' Even Though I'm Leaving.

Out of all the songs.

Out of every possible moment.

Then there was another Uber ride I'll never forget. The driver was Muslim. He was thoughtful, kind, and deeply philosophical.

Somehow our conversation found its way to grief.

As we talked, he told me he had lost both of his parents when he was young.

And I shared that I had recently lost my father as well.

Then he offered an analogy, one that I've carried with me ever since. He compared grief to a parent handing grocery bags to their children.

He explained that one child receives a heavier load while another receives a lighter one.

Not because one is loved more than the other...but because each child is capable of carrying a different weight.

"We're all given different baggage," he told me.

Different pains.

Different burdens.

Different moments in life to carry them.

I don't know why, but as he spoke, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. Not because his words erased my grief. But because, for a brief moment, they sounded like something my father would have wanted me to hear.

Even after work, I walk the same few blocks home. Almost every evening, I pass a man experiencing homelessness. He often holds different signs.

Yet one day, the sign simply read:

"I feel invisible."

Those words struck a chord. 

Instantly, I was transported back to my childhood religion class and the lesson from Matthew 25.

Again, the words followed me home. I couldn't stop thinking about them. Not because they were profound, but because they refused to leave me.

Maybe that's what these encounters are.

Not interruptions.

Invitations.

Some call them coincidences.

Others call them synchronicities.

While some might call these occurrences intuition...others call them God.

I've stopped trying to decide which explanation is right. Instead, I've become fascinated by a different question.

Why do certain people, whom we've never met before, leave us carrying their words for years?

Why does one stranger become unforgettable while hundreds of others quietly fade into memory?

Perhaps because they weren't strangers at all.

Likely they were mirrors.

Or maybe...they were messengers.

If we are all created in the image of God, maybe every person we meet carries the possibility of revealing something sacred.

Sometimes they remind us to be kinder.

Other times they help us carry grief.

And sometimes they unknowingly answer a question we've been asking in silence to ourselves.

Maybe miracles don't always arrive as burning bushes or voices from heaven.

Perhaps they arrive disguised as Uber drivers, handwritten cardboard signs, chance conversations we'll never have again, or as familiar faces we haven't met yet.

Maybe the purpose of life isn't only to search for signs. I believe it's to realize that, without ever intending to, we have all been one.

We've all unknowingly spoken words that someone carried home, offered comfort without realizing how deeply it was needed, and crossed paths with people whose lives we briefly touched, never knowing the impact we left behind.

Maybe that's what it means to be created in the image of God.

Not only to recognize the divine in others...but to become a reflection of it ourselves.

The beauty of life leaves me with two questions that I return to often:

Who has been a messenger for me?

And for whom have I unknowingly been one?

Perhaps the answer is far greater than we'll ever know.

And maybe the greatest miracle isn't that God speaks...perhaps it's that he has always chosen ordinary people to do it.