Mirror, Mirror in My Heart

There are two kinds of reflections that we can pay attention to: Our true reflection and the reflections that distract us.

Our true reflection is seen when we look to the Lord and see ourselves reflected in the light of our Designer; the One who made us exactly as He chose.  The reflections that distract us are everything else - anything that reflects an image to us that is anything other than what God intends for us.

When I was little, I was actually banned from mirrors.  I was so distracted whenever I caught a glimpse of my reflection that my mom hung blankets and towels over all the mirrors in our house.  I don't remember it being an issue with vanity; instead I would make funny faces.  All that practice actually has given me a semi-famous reputation with my nieces and nephews because I have perfected "fish lips".  I suppose sometimes I would watch my twin sister and wonder how I could be so different from her if we were supposed to be twins...  But mostly I would make faces!

So I guess I've always been distracted by my reflections; it just turned to something more internal.  You see, your reflections can come from a variety of sources:

• How your culture/community defines the role you find yourself in (woman in ministry, girlfriend, sister, mother, wife, young, old...)
• The feedback you get after you complete something that you worked very hard at
• How you meet expectations (from yourself, from others, or expectations that you perceive to be from others)
• The media, social and otherwise
• People in your own life that you deem successful for whatever reason (for example, my sister is successful in fashion and hospitality, my dad is successful in science, my mom is successful in creativity, my brother-in-law is successful in languages, and my husband is successful in athletics)
• Compliments and hurtful comments

All of these things have a way of defining us, and we can look at ourselves as measured against these standards and we start to see ourselves, our reflections, through these standards.

Shame on us!  Shame on me!  For most of my life I have struggled with how I look (internally and externally) because I was focusing on the reflections that distract me from my true reflection!  For example, when I got married, I had a list of expectations of what a wife should be. All of a sudden I found myself in new role and thought I needed to be a new person for that role, somehow forgetting the fundamental truth that my husband asked the pre-married me to be his wife.  I also have this fear of disappointing people, so I tend to be a cruel task master of myself when I'm working on a project for someone else.  In truth, if I did somehow disappoint them with the results they wouldn't cast me from their presence forevermore, but I drive myself to tears during the project as if they would.  One more example: when I was dating my husband, he made a comment about the importance of physical health.  I didn't ask for supporting details in the moment; I just tucked the comment deep down inside a dark corner of my heart to dwell there and fester into a distorted reality that if I tip the scales toward obesity he will despise me. 

Essentially I have been living in a hall of mirrors at a carnival - where every mirror is different.  I could realign myself to appear more proportional in one mirror, but then I would have twenty more mirrors in which I still looked foolish!

There was a very specific night two years ago when I couldn't sleep because I kept seeing myself failing in all these different reflections that were before me.  I was not the woman in ministry that I thought I ought to be; I was tipping the scales toward obesity; I did not fulfill my husband's desires; I was going to ruin my son's chances at ever learning English properly; I couldn't trust anyone because I couldn't trust myself.  I saw myself as a disgusting placeholder for someone else who really ought to be living my life.  My husband, full of courage and compassion, confronted those reflections.  He didn't necessarily confront me, but he sat next to me and my mountain of snotty tissues on the couch and stared down each distorted reflection I had of myself and tore it apart with the truth.  One by one.  I had this picture as he determined to stick it out with me: I would spin around and point to another carnival mirror as proof to my diseased existence and he would take a chair in his hand and smash the mirror into glass splinters.  As soon as that mirror was no longer distracting me I would whirl around to the next mirror with another self-directed accusation, as though that mirror held the truth.  He would quickly follow me in that direction and, just as aggressively, smash that mirror.  One by one.  He did not allow any carnival mirrors to stand until all of a sudden I was alone in the hall, and only one mirror remained in the center.  It was God and it was a mirror at the same time. It was the reflection that God wanted me to see of myself.  That moment was quiet and reverent and gentle and there was no shame there.

Friends, please find someone who cares about you, and have them bring a chair.  Invite them to help you smash all of those carnival mirrors that are twisted and distorted!  It will be exhausting work, but you need to do it in order to get to your true reflection!  Invite someone to look in the mirror with you and tell you that what you are seeing reflected back at yourself is not accurate - and then smash it!

You were not created to reflect expectations, beauty, or circumstances.  You were created to reflect our one true God!  Only by standing in His light can we see our true reflection; the only reflection you need to be concerned about.

Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world - the lust of flesh, the lust of eyes, and the pride of life - comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.  1 John 2:15-17

This seems like a good place to end, but I can't.... I can't end this with a sweet summary, "You are a princess of the High King" without at least mentioning what it means to find your true reflection in the Lord.

It means that He will show you all the wonderful ways He made you.  He will cause you to step back and simply marvel at His loving thoughtfulness to detail.  He will show you how He designed your life to be so purposefully integral to those around you.  He will show you how you work according to His design.

And...  He will show you how you are not working according to His design.  His light has a curious way into the dark places, and when we find our true reflection in Him we will see those places plainly (John 3:19-21).  And in His light we will be truly repentant and He will be truly forgiving (1 John 1: 4, 7, 9).  He will reach down and draw us out of those dark places and lovingly (and justly) set us in the places He has determined for us.

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be be made new in the attitude of your mind; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.  

And do not give the devil a foothold.  

Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  

For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.  Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.  It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.  But everything exposed by the light becomes visible - and everything is illuminated becomes a light.  This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." 

Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

(Ephesians 4:22-24, 27; 5:1-2, 8-16)

Last year I was mulling over the revelation that I am not in charge of my own sanctification.  I think that is what I am saying here.  I can't polish up my own image and spiritual life, and then  present it to God.  Because what mirror am I using as a measure of when I am "good enough" before I go to God?!  If I'm not seeing my reflection from the Lord, then it's just distracting and downright frustrating!  I can never be who God designed me to be if I am not seeing my reflection from the Designer Himself!

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12

So the next time you look in a mirror, remind yourself - this is what the world wants to show me.  Then ask

God, "What do You want to show me?

I am Ruth

Doom and despair.  That's how we are introduced to the story of Ruth and Naomi in the Bible.  I've always loved their story because of how it ends, but only in the last couple of years have I considered how their story started: displacement and grief.  Naomi was a foreigner living in Moab because there was famine and hunger in her homeland when she loses her husband and two sons to death's unrelenting knock.  She doesn't even have grandchildren yet!  What she does have are two daughters-in-law from the local culture, Orpah and Ruth.  When given the opportunity Orpah returned to her parents' home, but Ruth stayed with Naomi.

That is the moment in the story when I'm hooked!  I read breathlessly through their story to rush to the end where Ruth captures the heart of Boaz, the epitome of godly men, and they live their lives out together happily ever after in the lineage of Jesus.  It's a great story!  It's like Pride & Prejudice - I read it over and over again with the same anticipation for the moment that they realize at the time that they want to be together!

I can easily overlook the misery at the beginning of the story because I know the joyousness at the end of the story.  What knocked me off my feet was when I realized that Ruth didn't know the end of the story!  She endured all that grief, choose to leave her homeland to be a foreigner  in someone else's homeland, traversed they rocky ground along the endless length of the Dead Sea (which offers no nourishment to the body), and scaled the treacherous mountains from the lowest place on Earth up to Jerusalem.  She and Naomi, a grieving old woman, survived that arduous journey only to enter Bethlehem at the harvest time (spring), when the sun only gets higher and hotter day after day.  They were poor, travel weary, and alone.  Ruth bent under the sun and the scrutiny of gossiping critics day after day to provide for her mother-in-law.

Stop there.

Stop and appreciate the hardship that Ruth willingly endured.  Why?  She had no way of knowing that she would get a tiara, so to speak, in exchange for trial.  All she knew was the trial, the suffering.  So why did she submit to it?

Ruth had learned about faith in God. She didn't just learn that God exists and plays some kind of a role in the universe.  She learned about faith in God - that nonsensical absolute assurance that God is without a doubt active and interested in the world and in our lives so much so, in fact, that we dare not breathe without acknowledging his tender and powerful presence working all thins (including the doom and despair) together for the good of those who believe in him so that collectively we can give up our exhaustion for the glory of the One who loves us with an inseparable and unconditional grace-filled love kind of faith!

Deep breath...

When you learn that kind of faith the trial dims in comparison.  You can look above and beyond and cling to the One who is in absolute control.

That was the kind of faith that has moved all the great ones into great stories.  Not just Ruth and Naomi, but Noah, Abraham, David, Rahab, Peter, Paul, Corrie ten Boom, A.W. Tozer, and.... me?

All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw and welcomed them from a distance.  And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God... Hebrews 11:13-16

I am Ruth.  I am a foreigner living among the Jewish people.  I do not know the end of my story here.  In fact this particular chapter of my story has a lot of conflict and discouragement in it.  I am Ruth.  I chose to endure trial because my faith is greater than my suffering.  I have no idea what God has called me to or for, only that he has called me.  I am Ruth.  I journey by faith, not knowing the end.

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering... So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.  You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised... We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. Hebrews 10:32, 35-36, 39

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3