Looking Into The Mirror

Yesterday I looked into a mirror for the first time in one month. I have to be honest, I did not look too hard. I avoided my scraggly beard and moustache, ignored the burn marks on my lips from eating too tart mangos, and merely swept my gaze across my long, windblown hair. Instead I looked only into my own eyes, because they are one of the few parts of me that I actually like.

God has been dropping some bombs on me lately, and now I am going to share them with you. He has been telling me to be vulnerable, but I did not know that vulnerability would mean God revealing things I never wanted to know about myself. And then sharing them with twenty one other people. So beware, what you are going to read next is a part of me.

Throughout my life I have occasionally enjoyed writing, mainly poems. But I have never enjoyed reading my writing. Throughout my life I have occasionally enjoyed working out and building up my body. But I have rarely enjoyed looking at myself in the mirror. This is because these two parts of myself, my artistic expression and my actual physical self, are parts that I hate. They are parts that I have ignored. They are parts that I have attempted to separate myself from.

I would write a poem, read it over once for editing purposes, and then throw it away immidiately. If I kept it I would read it again later, or give it to the person it was written for. If someone, even myself, read it later, then they would see the part of me that had written that poem. And that could not happen. The other day I wrote a poem, about star gazing, and I felt God telling me to share it with the group. At first I said no. Then I said maybe. Then I prayed about it for several hours. Then at last, at worship that night, the spirit pushed me, and I read it. That was the first time that I can remember sharing my poetry with more than one other person. And I saw myself, and I began to hate myself again. But then, God stepped in, and this is what he said.

Daniel, why? Why do you hate this? Why do you hate part of yourself? I created you, all of you, and I love all of it. So stop. Stop hating yourself, I have made you who you are, so accept it, and move on.

When a lot of people tell their testimonies, they end them with `I would not change a thing, because it has made me the person I am today.` I always thought that was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. Would not change a thing? What kind of life have you lived? I would change so, so many things. I would change every mistake I ever made. I would not hurt the people I have hurt. I would not be hurt by the people who have hurt me. I would not live in depression for the last 7 years of my life. I have so many regrets.

But what God was saying was, no more regrets. No more hating the parts of you that I made. The emotional parts of you that have developed from the depression. No more hating the body that you blame your rejections on. No more.

And now I am starting to see. See that if God can love the person that I am today, maybe I can love that person too. Maybe I can accept the pain I have caused and experienced in the past. Maybe I can finally look in the mirror without thinking ‘that is not me, that cannot be me, I have to be more than this, I have to be…’

I never thought this is what I would be learning on the trip. Like so many of the things God has replaced in me, I did not think this was a problem. I thought regrets meant a desire to be better. However, now I see that regrets are just another excuse to hate yourself. And God is a God of love, not hate. And while I am still thanking God that there is no mirror in my bathroom here, when I get back, I hope to love more about myself than just my eyes.

Here is the poem I wrote that day.

The Eyes Of God

We lay here in the dark.
Looking up at the ageless wonders.
Our backs resting on the ancient Earth.
Our warm presence is fleeting,
And soon we will join the soil beneath us.
But in our fleshy bodies,
Something eternal looks out.
More ancient than the dirt below.
More ageless than the stars above.
The soul that was known,
Before the boday was formed.
And each time it looks up at the endless universe.
It yearns to be free.