Through a glass darkly

What do you see when you look in a mirror?

I know what I see. I see the many imperfections. My long nose. The spots I have littering my face and my chest. The wide shoulders that seem to stick out. The tummy that looked on sideways makes me look pregnant. The bum that seems three sizes larger than the rest of me. The short stubby legs that would be a supermodel’s nemesis.

What I see when I look in the mirror is so much focussed on my appearence. If I’m lucky, I might spot the bright blue eyes or the thick eyebrows around them, but more often than not, I don’t. And they are still what I look like.

Now, the Bible tells us that that is not what God sees. The Bible tells us that we are precious and loved. That we can be so much more than simply what we look like and that life is about so much more than that anyway. In fact, the Bible tells us that God loves us so much that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on our behalf.

So we see a distorted image of ourselves, and we get gnarled up in the twisted thinking which spirals down into self abuse and for me, at any rate, self harm or endless diets. I try to make the imperfections perfect in my own way, and it always fails.

But there is hope if we move towards the things that God considers important. If let our lives be shaped by Jesus, and let ourselves be transformed bit by bit, surely things have to get better, don’t they?

Sometimes, I think the problem can be bigger than that though. If we have such a distorted image of ourselves, what is our view of God like? If that is as distorted as the one we have of ourselves is, then we really have an issue.

It sort of all goes back to the Bible really, doesn’t it? And not, (well, hopefully) in a cheesy “we must read our Bibles more then get healed” but more of the dwelling in the truth within its pages. One of the old prayer books in the Church of England uses the phrase “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” about the Holy Scriptures. That expresses how we need to let the truth of the Bible be ingested by our system. A bit like when you have have too much garlic, the next day you can feel it oozing out though all your pores. Or alcohol, but let’s not go there, shall we?

When we concentrate on the greater truth of the Bible, suddenly, my stubby legs seem far less important in the grand scheme of things. And if they don’t, then they really should. But at any rate, we need to get a right image of God, away from all the twisted distortions of our minds and the limits of our imagination. And then, hopefully, the healing can begin.

 

A gift…

Sometimes, quite honestly, I wonder what on earth I’m doing. Why I even try. Why get our of bed in the mornings. Why I would dare to speak to anyone – I mean, I never have anything interesting to say, do I?

Somehow then, this makes its way down into my actions and my behaviour. What is the point of doing anything? Why even try to be nice or make small talk? And everything ends up somehow revolving back around me again. A selfish pretence of modesty.

And then I remember. I realise that God is there. That he is in control. And that funnily enough, (and I can never really understand why), he loves me. Even if it might feel like no one esle does at times. That I’m the most boring dinner party guest in the world and that I always seem to get it wrong.

And actually, everything I am, and that you are too, is a gift from God. Every breath that we take. Every hair on our head. All of my body and the fact that it mostly seems to work ok. Even the bits that I don’t especially like myself: the lumpy, bumpy bits, or the wide hips that mean I can never buy jeans right.

It is so different from what I hear in the world around me where nothing ever seems to be good enough and people can be so thoughtless.

But it is the truth.

And it is what gets me out of bed in the mornings.