Mirror, Mirror

Original artwork by Nickie Perdue







Some time ago I arrived at the office a little later than usual. My assistant was already there. Several times that morning I caught her stealing glances in my direction through the door of our adjoining offices. I didn't ask.

It had been a hurried morning: wake up late; skip the coffee; hit the shower; brush the teeth; get dressed and out of the house as quickly as possible...then follow a slow moving truck on a two lane highway with oncoming traffic spaced out just enough to discourage passing. Now, don't even try to tell me I'm the only one this ever happens to.

That particular morning, though, I had wanted to be early and wound up being late. I had a heavy agenda and a fast approaching deadline. This was definitely not the way I wanted to start the day, and my mood reflected it. Being somewhat self-aware I knew I was not presenting my better side. Still, I didn't want to enter a conversation about it, as doing so would bite even more deeply into my behind-running schedule.

Finally, expressing herself as the-all-ways-looking-out-for-my-best-interest blessing that she truly is, my assistant decided to take it head on. She stepped up to our doorway and asked, "Is your hair still wet?"

Her question took me by surprise. "It shouldn't be," I said, frowning as I reached up to feel...totally dried hair, brittle with mousse...and I remembered.

After I'd recapped the toothpaste, and put mousse in my hair, my cell phone had rang. I'd rushed back to my bedroom to answer it before finishing the 'hurry up version' of my morning routine...and had never made it back to the bathroom mirror. Not only had the mousse dried in my hair, I was also sans make-up...truly not the way I wanted to appear at a meeting scheduled later that afternoon with the chairman of our board of directors!

My lunch hour that day was spent re-wetting my hair to style it as best I could with my fingers, and comb - without benefit of blow dryer and curling iron; then rushing to the store to waste money on duplicate makeup...all because I'd failed to look back into the mirror and fix what I saw there before leaving the house.

James 1:23-25

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for {once} he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the {law} of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

My day was less blessed than it could have been had I remedied the flaws revealed by my bathroom mirror. Yet, it is of much more importance to look into the Mirror of God's Word, see the imperfections of my spiritual face reflected back, then work to correct them before walking away and forgetting (or ignoring) the flaws thereby revealed.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Please grant me the grace to stay before your mirror long enough to deal with the flaws in my character I see reflected there.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
Amen.