The Mirror of Life

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“No matter how many good friends I had, there were aspects of my life I needed to deal with alone - heart issues and attitudes that could not be wrestled with in a Bible study . . . They had to be confronted by the Holy Spirit in the privacy of my own soul.”
~~ From “A Glimpse of Grace” by Mary Forsythe (with Beth Clark) ~~

Let’s be honest: There isn’t a mentally competent person alive who can look at this week’s quote and say, “Oh, no, I can’t relate to that at all. Not me. Nope. I don’t have any issues that I need to deal with, alone or otherwise. I’m fine.”

And if anyone had the audacity to make such a claim, who would want to be around them, anyway? Not me! Because if, by some miracle, they happened to be right, I would probably find them incredibly boring and feel entirely inferior in their presence.

I am blessed because I have some very dear friends that I have known for many years. We know a lot about each other because we have experienced so much life together. We know each other’s families and family histories. We know each other’s extended families and many of their stories, too. We know each other’s ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, ex-high school crushes, about whom we discuss sightings and news heard via other friends and relatives when we gather over a glass of wine and good meal.

In short, they know a lot about me.

Do they know everything about me? Not a chance. And they never will.

We all have secrets. Thoughts, feelings, desires, regrets, maybe even small obsessions that we do not share with another living soul, no matter how close we are to the other people in our lives.

Why? Fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of unworthiness. Fear of revealing so much about ourselves that others will see that we are not as confident, assured, in control or well-balanced as we pretend to be.

Fear of receiving love. Fear of being accepted as we really, truly are — absent any pretense of perfection.

[L]ife is like a mirror, tending to reflect back to us the images of our own thinking, [so] we should realize that by changing our thinking we can change the reflections in the mirror.

Next we should ask: What do we want to see in this mirror? And have we the courage to admit that what we are looking at in the mirror is a reflected image of our own outlook on life? Are we looking at antagonism, resentment, confusion? Are we looking at fear, failure, unhappiness? And are we actually willing to look into this mirror of life and say, “This is I”? And then, if we do not like what we see, have we enough confidence to believe that we can change it? If so, we have made the right start.

Living the Science of Mind: What Do We See in the Mirror? by Ernest Holmes

Those “heart issues” are the reflected images that the mirror reveals, the product of our own flawed thinking. In the privacy of our own souls, we wrestle with those parts of ourselves that we dare not reveal to the world.

For Christians, the breakthroughs begin when we understand that in those “still, small moments” we are completely and perfectly loved, accepted, forgiven and, most importantly, safe. It is during those quiet talks with our Divine Creator that we grow in our faith, and learn to forgive others fully and freely only as we understand how to forgive ourselves for our own humanity.

It is in those tender, quiet moments that we sense our connection to and oneness with the Divine Creator — and crave more and more of those moments in our over-scheduled, over-committed, technologically-driven lives. It is in those moments that we experience the true beauty of hope and hopefulness, so it is quite literally those exquisitely coveted moments that propel us toward our goals.

PostSecret is a pop culture phenomenon. People all over the world mail anonymous messages on postcards to a webmaster who then uploads them for anyone to read. They are clever, witty, poignant. Those postcards evoke curiosity — about the person who sent the postcard, the details of their lives and why they would choose to send their secret out into the universe via that medium. I often wonder how many of the folks who mail postcards are persons of faith or folks who are looking for something to believe in. Because it seems to me that the act of mailing one of those postcards is akin and, perhaps part of, the act of confronting and working through a heart issue.

Now there are videos, as well, including this one:

When we look into the mirror and spend time meditating about what we see there, we must be gentle and loving with ourselves, as the Savior is with us. We must forgive ourselves, as he forgives us because only then will we learn to forgive others. We must simultaneously accept and understand that we will not experience absolute clarity, even as we yearn and strive for it. “Now we see but a poor 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.) Now we achieve peaceful moments; then we shall have the complete, unremitting peace that passes all understanding.

Thanks go to Michelle at Because I Love You for hosting this week! Drop by and read the other participants’ discussion of this week’s quote. Thanks also go out to a dear and gentle spirit named Viola Jaynes of Spiritual Things Matter who prodded me back into writing through her words of encouragement.