The Mirror of Life

“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.

Tech­no­rati Tags: In “Other” Words

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