Unbroken Eyes: Seeing Ourselves as God Does.
I’ve always been a fan of statement pieces. A strong piece of furniture, an oversized clock, a work of art that stretches to the ceiling. Not all at once though, just one or two pieces per room. You don’t want your house to look like a costume shop or a yard sale. And so, that mirror, that-bigger-than-me, edged with mahogany mirror was my statement piece. There might have been a few others too. I was seventeen and only had one room to put all my statement pieces in. Naturally, it was a strong room.
A sea of cloth covered the floor. No rugs, just cardigans and jeans and shirts. Empty closet, busy floor. This was before I wore black and gray nearly everyday; before I knew I didn’t need to follow fashions every whim.
When I was nineteen Jenn said she never met someone who tried on as many outfits as I did. She knew me when I was only half as bad as I was at seventeen. Not like Janae, who says after ten minutes of hating everything in her closet she defaults to a sweater and jeans. She moves on with her day, gets on with her life.
Before I was nineteen or twenty-one, I was seventeen and would just stand there and stare at the mirror- the mirror that manifested the lies. The lie that said I needed one more great pair of jeans, that I needed to lose ten pounds, and that when x, y, z happened everything would be better.
I wish I could say that all of this has gone away, that I’ve arrived at this place of complete and utter confidence one hundred percent of the time. But that would be a lie too. When I get really real, I have to confess that sometimes the synapses in my brain misfire and I see glimpses of who I was when I was seventeen; who I was when I wasn’t okay. A lapse in judgment, two blinded eyes. And if I don’t fight the one who wants to kill my heart, the lies will take root before I even see what’s happening.
Only it’s different now because on most days, a deeper truth really does resound in my heart. The Truth that says, “Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” Before I knew who I was, the illusions from the Imposter made me dead. The not-truths were consuming. My not being able to believe that I was perfectly loved by God kept me living in the shadows; kept me obedient to the “Stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how ugly you are” command.
I wish I knew then what I know now. I could have spent so much of that wasted time doing the things that mattered. But I stood there. A meaningless crucifixion; a lengthy story of self-hate. A ripping myself to shreds; a ripping God’s precious, precious, precious creation to pieces.
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On Saturday I looked in the mirror and felt uncomfortable with what I saw. I walked away and read stories about people I didn’t know, wrote stories about people I did know, and then ate some honey mango. I did everything I could to distract myself from confronting the lies. Tried to ignore my dissatisfaction, per usual. Around 2pm I got a text from a friend asking me to come hang out. Everything within me wanted to go- to put on my makeup and walk out the door- to carry on as though everything were okay. But something was different, I knew that’s not who I was anymore. I knew that in the last few years, God has brought me to a new place, has shown me that the idea of being a “new creation” is not just an idea, but rather a way of being.
I knew that in order to step deeper into the reality of the things I so often speak about I needed to wrestle with the lies in my head. I needed to sit and be and depend on God to be big enough to fight all my insecurities.
I walked around the house, “God, who do you say I am?”
I went to the mirror and heard what is true:
You’ve got eyes that are perfect, with them you can see. Open, close, open, close; you are alive. Liner is not needed. No, not on those pretty angel eyes. You can tell the truth with those eyes. Scare out the bad in the world with them. My eyes, your eyes, and everything that we are is made by hands that are without fault. Those hands, those Creator hands, they know not how to make something broken. See yourself with unbroken eyes.
Last week I heard someone say, “I’m more interested in pointing out what is good then I am in pointing out what is bad.”
And so, I say, Let’s be people who point out what God already says is good within us. Let’s point out the beauty that is made apparent already. Let’s press into that reality as we forsake the false self that says we aren’t acceptable, aren’t lovable, aren’t adequate.
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When I was seventeen I didn’t know how to eat or how to love myself- or who to even be for that matter. That’s when my ribs poked out without any effort. And the secret is, the tragedy is- that even then- I still wasn’t okay with what I saw. Like I said, I wish I knew then what I know now.
I would have taken one look at that mirror and cracked it to a million tiny pieces. I’d have thrown angry fists to that reflection-lie. Sweep, sweep, sweep, mirror slivers into the trash. You can’t ever look at me like that again.
If your mirror lies, if it’s got brass bars around your mind, your heart- if it strangles the life of God in you, crush it.
Our broken eyes have nothing to do with what we see and everything to do with why we see the way we do. We’ve got to come to an honest place where we can ask ourselves why we let guilt and shame and self-hate strangle us. We’ve got to become people who write better stories- stories that illuminate our true identity as God’s children. We’ve got to know that until we root ourselves in the truth of what God says we are, we’ll be dead. Dead, dead, dead; plan your funeral, close the casket. Until we believe that we are loved, cherished, and adored by Him it won’t matter how much weight you lose, how perfect your theology is, or how successful you become.
Perfectly loved. You are perfectly loved. Right now, in this very moment.
“People are prepared for everything except for the fact that beyond the darkness of their blindness there is a great light. They are prepared to go on breaking their backs plowing the same old field until the cows come home without seeing, until they stub their toes on it, that there is a treasure buried in that field rich enough to buy Texas. They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour’s work as for a day’s. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the lamb.” -Frederick Buechner
