"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" I don't think I know any female who has not grown up being socialized to fret about her reflection or her appearance in the mirror.
When I pass in front of my bathroom mirror, I often glance at the image, and I have to do a double-take. For a wild minute, I do not recognize the older, slightly crinkled face, the thick glasses and short blonde, white-speckled hair. Okay, I must confess, the white speckles might be more like patches, if I didn't visit my hair stylist routinely. Truth be told, I am not sure what my true hair color is. You get the idea! That woman, that stranger in the mirror, cannot be me!
The first mirrors were most likely pure, deep, dark pools of still water. In Greek mythology Narcissus saw his imperfect reflection in the water and fell in love with it!
The earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass. Obsidian mirrors found in modern-day Turkey have been dated to around 6,000 B.C. Polished stone, polished copper, polished bronze, metal-coated glass, glass with gold leaf, blown glass coated with molten lead, glass coated with a tin-mercury amalgam, and polished glass coated with aluminum or non-toxic silver have all been used to manufacture mirrors. Humans have treasured their mirrors or looking-glasses for thousands of years.
Unfortunately, we seem to have fallen in love with our external images, with little regard for our internal beauty. I would venture to say that what we see in our looking-glasses is only a fractional depiction of who we truly are.
1 Corinthians 13:11-12 says, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 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."
The imagery is of a polished metal (probably bronze) mirror, in which only an imperfect, distorted, obscure reflection is received. Similarly, when I look at the older woman in my bathroom mirror, my mind often does not register the real me. Instead I see a distorted younger version.
The good news is that my Lord knows me to the fullest degree, regardless of what my mind's eye sees reflected in my mirror. He does not need a mirror to see me. He sees my exterior and my interior completely. He searches me inside and out, and He loves me anyway. He knew my unformed body when I was knit together in my mother's womb. He knows every single hair of my white-speckled hair, and He knows my thoughts before I form or speak them.
The great news is that when He appears again, I will be like Him, and I will see Him as He is.
"Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 1 John 3:2
Now I see but a poor skewed reflection, but when He appears again, I will fix my eye on Him and see Him face to face, just as He is.
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