Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

The mirror doesn't lie. Or so we've been told.

*

I rarely pass a mirror that I don't glance - just to make sure, I guess, of...I don't really know what I'm making sure of. Maybe I want to make sure I don't have anything embarrassing going on with my face or hair. One day, I glance and think,  "You are looking all right for a 49 year old." Another day - possibly the very next day - it's "Face it, Shelley. You are getting old."

These last couple of days, I've been doing a little more than glancing, though. My doctor husband zapped a few age spots on my face with a powerful little machine at his office. (One of these spots was actually in the shape of the state of Idaho turned upside down. Didn't want their state motto, "Esto Perpetua," coming true on my face.) Before the magic zapping fades some effects of time, though, I'll have a few battle scars evident for all the world to see. So, I keep checking them.

Now, even though I do check them when I pass mirrors, I'm really not obsessing about them. They don't hurt, and I actually forget they are there. So, I'm not expecting people to ask me, "What happened?" After a friend kindly asked me about my spots this morning, I started thinking about the real me, and the real body that the real me has been given. It's done some changing over the years.

And this outside of me will keep changing if I'm given that gift of time. More wrinkles, more spots (too many to zap), more aches, more pains.

Can I thank the Lord for this?


I can. And I say that because of the truth printed in God's word.  2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says:
"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

Can we possibly grasp this? The real me is being renewed day by day! There is an eternal weight of glory coming that is beyond all comparison! I can hardly sit in my seat as I type. Why me? Why me?

This verse is one of the ones on the sheet I have posted in my bathroom (see February 15 blog entry). It's next to my mirror. So while I'm looking at a reflection of my outer self - which is wasting away - I remind myself and reflect on the truth of what's really happening to me. No comparison. No losing heart.

*Drumstick