THE MIRROR THAT NEVER LIES TO YOU

Oh, the mirror.

Sometimes I love it (because it’s helpful)…sometimes I hate it (because it’s not helpful). You know those days where you feel pretty great and feel good and strong and alive, and then wam! The mirror. The mirror that tells you that you don’t look pretty or good or beautiful. The mirror that gleefully points out every little flaw or wrinkle or perceived excess. The mirror that makes you want to curl up in a little teensy ball and stay hidden away in your bedroom forever because you just don’t like what you see.

I hate that mirror.

I’ve given that mirror far too much power over my heart in the past years.

I’ve had that mirror threaten to ruin date nights out with my husband, because even though I had been feeling gorgeous with hair-that-actually-went-like-I-wanted-it-to, a little extra makeup, and a pretty dress on…I take one wrong glace in the mirror and suddenly I go from feeling gorgeous to feeling anything but beautiful. And then I sit in the car and try to think about what I can do to make myself beautiful…what can I do to get ride of this feeling of un-beautiful? When really, there is nothing I can do. I am myself, and I am beautiful. It’s not a matter of changing anything little thing about myself. It’s about changing what I believe.

Months ago, I heard this line from a song that resonated so deeply and gave me such hope for a better way: His eyes are my mirror.

His eyes. God’s eyes.

Not my eyes.

My eyes will lie to me every time. My eyes can only see the physical, and beautiful doesn’t come from the physical. Beautiful is an essence that is felt, an essence that is lived and breathed. Everything around us tells us that beautiful is what you see. But that’s not true: beautiful is a presence. It’s a belief.

It’s too easy to confuse pretty with beautiful, but they are not the same thing. You can spend your whole life being pretty, but that doesn’t make you beautiful. Beauty is an essence, not a physical quality. Beauty is something people feel from you, not what they see about you.

Many times throughout my day or week, I have to stop and consciously look in the right mirror. I have to turn my eyes away from the mirror in my bedroom and turn my heart and thoughts to the mirror in His eyes. That mirror is the only one that will offer me reality, the only one that will inspire hope and kindness, the only one that will give me Truth. My bedroom mirror will lie to me, but the one in His eyes never will.

What about you: do you find the relationship with the physical mirror to be a tumultuous one as well? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts!