Maybe my Mirror is Wrong

Excerpt: I can hold a view of me that isn’t true. To see me rightly, I must see me as God does. I must trust His appraisal of my worth. I tend to see me as my Dad did. But what if Dad was wrong? What if my mirror is wrong?

Doctors often treat a psychological disorder called ‘body dysmorphia'.  It’s where I’m obsessed with imaginary defects in my appearance. I see deformities in my face or body which aren't actually there. It’s all in my mind. I also believe you see my defects.  Since the mental lens through which I see is distorted, the image I see is also distorted. It doesn’t match reality. Yet it's very real to me.  It shapes how I see me. Regardless of my actual appearance or how you see me.

We all have a mental picture of ourselves. It’s how I see me. Perhaps you see you as you truly are. As God sees you. But many of us don't. I've carried a self-portrait for years. I replaced God's portrait with mine, framed it and called it ‘me’.

Vision impairment can require surgery. At times, ‘the eyes of my heart’ need surgery too. Like physical sight, it may take time to see myself rightly. Jesus touched a blind man who at first saw men as 'trees walking’. So his eyes needed a second touch. God can heal instantly but He often chooses to work through a process over time. For me, my vision is slowly improving and I’m finally starting to see myself as He sees me. It’s a daily battle to focus on God’s truth instead of  my feelings or Satan's lies. But my beliefs are slowly changing. As a result, the way I feel about me is also changing.
 
I’m still tempted to view myself through a lens of insecurity rather than God's truth. But I don’t stay there long.  I’ve caught a glimpse of how He sees me and I refuse to look at my old self portrait.  I trust His evaluation more than my own. As a result, I'm finding that what always seemed too good to be true is in fact true. I do have worth! While I am more selfish than I thought, I am more loved than I could ever hope for. What I hoped to be true is true. I am loved!

There is something intriguing about ‘before and after’ pictures. Whether it’s weight loss stories or home remodels, the side by side images inspire us with hope that whatever transformation we desire might actually be possible.  I wrote the following poem to paint a picture. It’s the view I had of myself years ago and which I saw whenever I looked in a mirror. I carried this self-portrait for years. Keep in mind: this is a ‘before’ picture. The ‘after’ picture is an unfinished work still in progress. In between is the current story of God changing the way I see myself. I'll share some of it later. 
 
This is the self-portrait I laid over God’s portrait of me.  I had help in drawing this portrait.  Parents, circumstances, friends and my accuser Satan all contributed to this picture, but I was the primary artist and mind behind this image. God's opinion of me was never considered in this process. In drawing this portrait, I never considered that my view of me might be distorted. It reflects what I saw in the mirror. And I had no reason to question the mirror or my eyesight.

'A Room with a Mirror'
Jack Anderson

Sign on the door says ‘Private’. I usually come at night. Back corridor of my mind. Last room on the right.
Not much in here to speak of…a chair, a lamp, a mirror.
Yet I feel hounded and surrounded
by the pain that brings me here.
 
It’s not the deep sharp pain of a rude or careless word.
It’s the pain of daily silence where love is seldom heard. It's the lack of conversation. A family's preoccupation.
It’s the chronic isolation when a friend cannot be found.

Here self-pity sees busyness as a cover for indifference.
And your unintentional silence as intentional absence.
Here your innocent preoccupation hits me like rejection.
Stirring up this need in me to reflect on my reflection.

As growing girls rely on a mirror to validate their worth,
aging men reflect on their years to justify their birth.

You may ask why I sit at a mirror or what I hope to see. 
I hope it will explain why I still don’t feel good about me.
Not looking for a winsome face or a young robust frame.
I just want to be proud of the man who wears my name.

What legacy will I leave to legitimize my existence? Will I end my life with little to show despite my persistence?

So I look.       I examine.         I critique.        I compare.
I think.         I reflect.         I sit.         I stare.

What will others think or say when they look at me?
Then again, do they even look or if they do, do they see?
 
I'd like the mirror to show me the man I was or the man I always hoped to be. Instead, it makes me face the facts.
The man of my dreams isn’t me.  
 
Truth is hard to swallow when I'm forced to face my age. I'm not where I thought I'd be, especially at this stage.

Do others see the me I see? Whenever they look at me?
I wish they saw a noble man.  Loving, wise and strong.
I fear they see the man I see: a man who doesn't belong.
 
Trips to the mirror end in regret. Why do I come or stay?
Maybe the mirror will tell me I won't always be this way.

It's decades later yet the man I am hasn't really changed.
But the eyes through which I see him have. Eyes that see
more clearly than they ever have before. My vision never improved as long as I kept looking in mirrors.  Nor did I.

The man in a mirror can't change unless the man looking into it does. And he can't until he shifts his focus. I won't see myself better by looking at myself more.  I'll only see myself rightly if I see what God sees. Hear what He says.

He says 'I love you as you are. You're mine. You belong.'
 Need a mirror? Look into God's. Maybe yours is wrong.

My 1st appointment each day was with a mirror. Each hopeful start ended as an 'appointment with disappointment'.  
I'd turn from the mirror and enter my day with one of two intentions. I either resolved to prove the mirror wrong by recommitting to my self-improvement project. Or I resigned myself to the mirror’s verdict and made a new goal of no longer having goals. Most days were spent alternating back and forth between the two. Neither of which really helped. 
 
I know the danger of introspection, yet for much of my life I rarely missed my appointment with this internal mirror.
How did I get so addicted to self scrutiny and self improvement? It comes from a need in me to feel good about myself.
I'm tired of failing at most things I try. I want to do at least one thing consistently well. Yet it seems I consistently fail.
So I have to keep checking in with the mirror like a child keeps checking the seedling she planted to see if it's growing.
 
But God in His mercy opened my eyes to His mercy. To see His heart is to see God for who He is rather than who I imagine Him to be. And guess what? I was wrong about Him. And about the way He sees me. I am astounded at how vastly different my view of me is from God's view of me. My view is distorted. It’s simply not the truth about who I am.

Another malady of the eye is partial blindness. Where I see some things clearly but I'm not seeing everything. It may be that my mirror shows me as beautiful, smart, strong and handsome. But it still isn't an accurate picture if it doesn't reveal the rest of me. I live in my body, but I am not my body. I am a spirit with a soul. I have a heart with desires and motives. I have a personality, attitudes and character traits that make me me. To see me is to see all of me rightly. It's not easy. I'll overemphasize my weakness and minimize my strengths. Or visa-versa. No wonder it's hard to paint me.
 
I see now that so many of my thoughts about me were wrong. Yes, they were honest. But you can be honestly wrong.
In laying my self-image alongside God’s image of me, I realize that I really don't know myself that well. Self-reflection is very subjective. Like body dysmorphia, my thoughts don't always match with reality. We think we know ourselves better than we do. But wise men are quick to admit they could be wrong. Maybe the way to stop doubting myself is to start doubting myself. What do I mean? If I know I can't trust my own judgment, maybe I shouldn't be my own judge.

We naturally feel that if we think something, it must be true because it comes
from within us. But just because you think something does not make it true.
Rick Warren

As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be more than I presently am. To be more loving, more courageous, more trusting, more ‘everything’. To be content with who I am felt like trying to be content with hunger. My desire for a tiny measure of improvement was stronger than my desire for God. It was rare for me to look in a mirror and actually like the man I saw. But recently, I did exactly that. I looked in the mirror and actually loved the man looking back at me!

It’s now months later and I looked again today. I still love the man I see! In spite of his pride and his many failures.
Something is changing in the way I see myself! What’s crazy about this change in how I feel about myself is that the
man in the mirror looks about the same. He still has the same faults, failures and weaknesses. He still can't measure up to the man I've always wanted to be. And I still see little improvement in spite of enormous effort over many years.
 
Yet I love this man more now than I ever did before! In fact, I even like the guy! As I said earlier, while the man in the mirror hasn’t changed much, the eyes through which I see him have. What happened to my eyes? What helped me see myself differently? It's hard to explain, but I do know by trial and error what didn't help. Looking in mirrors everyday.
 
My view of Jack never changed as long as I kept looking at Jack. It only started changing when I turned away from the mirror to look at someone besides me. Like the God who made me in His image, sees me as I am and loves me as I am.

I know now that my biggest handicap is not my weakness, but my fear of weakness and my obsession with perfection.
What's held me back isn't failure but my fear of it and my obsession with success. And my determination to fix myself.
What's held me back is my constant introspection, my hatred of flaws and my addiction to self-improvement projects.

What's held me back most is this mirror!
          And my belief that it’s reflection is the true reflection of my worth.   
But what if my mirror is wrong?

I never considered the possibility that a mirror could be wrong! Like a carnival mirror giving me a distorted reflection.
Nor did it ever occur that the lens through which I see might distort what I see. Including what I might see in a mirror.

My self-image also gets distorted when I make myself my own doctor. I diagnose myself and will not entertain the idea that I could be wrong. No one dare challenge my diagnosis. Not even God. I think I'm the expert on myself but I'm not.
Nor can I be my own judge. Yet I try. And since I haven't been shown mercy, I don't show it to me. I'm my worst critic.
With this bias against me, each setback in life or unkind word is filtered through self-rejection. It's not easy to love me.
 
Picture a skinny Jr. High girl who really thinks she's fat. Her judgment is skewed by incorrect thinking but logic alone can't convince her of her beauty. And looking in the mirror doesn’t help. Her problem is her eyes and the way she sees.
She tries to improve her self image by preparing for her visits to the mirror. As if confidence comes with being pretty. But confidence only shows up when we get our eyes off of us. Focusing on me never made me feel better about myself. 
 
Want to see yourself rightly? Stop looking at you. The only one who can evaluate you rightly is the One who made you.
You won't see yourself better by looking at yourself more. Ask God how He sees you. It'll change the way you see you.

When I look at myself all by myself (assuming I'm always right about me) with no consideration of God's perspective, I am sitting in darkness and don't realize it. And darkness distorts what I see. Psa 36:9 says ‘in your light we see light’. Apart from God’s light, I'm blind. What makes it worse is I think I can see. And I think I see clearly. But I don't. Only in the light of God’s truth can I see Him as He really is. Or see others as they really are. Or see myself as I really am.

Why do we look at mirrors in the first place? We want to know what we look like. And there's nothing wrong with that.
It's natural to want to look good. To want to be beautiful or strong. It's also natural to want to feel like we are 'likable'.
We want to know we’re worthy of love, honor or respect. Is there anything in me that others will like, admire or want? 

That's a normal question. Where problems arise is how we go about answering that question. So how do I answer it? 
As for my face, I look in a mirror. Other than the tip of my nose, I’ve never seen my face directly. The only way to do so is to look at a mirror which reflects my image back. And what you see is an accurate reflection of what you look like.
 
But imagine how a boy might see himself if the only mirror he ever looked into was distorted, like one you'd find in a carnival or children’s museum. His mental picture of his own appearance would be formed by that mirror’s reflection.
That's exactly what happens to a lot of us internally when we think about our worth, our beauty or our value to others.

When I focus on how you see me, it’s like looking in a mirror. I’m looking at you while wondering what you see in me.  What I want to see is how I look to you. I don't even see you! I'm actually looking at me. From a different angle. Yours.

As young kids, the value we place on ourselves is for the most part shaped by the way our parents saw and valued us.
For most of us, the first reflection we saw of ourselves and what we're really like was seen in the eyes of our parents.

As a man who wrestles with insecurity, I must admit that I’ve been most influenced not by what God thinks of me. Nor what I think of me. Nor what others think of me. It’s what I think others think of me that most shapes the way I think of me. This was especially true of my father. The way he saw me (or the way I thought he saw me) is how I saw myself.

But here's the problem with adopting my father's view of me. 
What if my father's view was wrong?

We think we know how others see us and never consider the possibility that we could be wrong. We also do it to God.
The problem for the ten spies returning from Canaan was not the giants they saw. The problem wasn't with how they saw the giants or how the giants saw them. The problem was in the way they thought the giants saw them. They said,  ‘We were like grasshoppers in their sight”. How did they know what the giants thought? They didn't. They guessed.
 
We do that too. We guess. We do it with God. We do it with others. We're so sure we know what others think of us. Yes there's a chance we may be right. My problem is when we assume we're right without asking them. 1 Cor. 2: 11 says “For who can know a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them?' You can't know what I think unless I tell you. Same with God. Paul continues 'In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God”. The only way you can truly know how God sees you is if He shows you Himself. Don't guess. Let Him show you.

How does He do that? He speaks to you through His words. Telling you what He thinks and feels about you. He also shows you His heart by what He does. Like He did at Calvary. So what do you do to hear His Words and see His heart?
You ask Him to speak and you listen to what He says. You ask to see His heart and you look at what He shows you.
Only God can reveal God. And He reveals Himself to those who really want to know His heart and what He thinks.

I could rattle off ideas about seeing yourself as God does. But I think I'll just tell my story of how God opened my eyes. I get the concept of grace and know I’ll never be good enough to merit His favor, yet I’ve persisted in trying to prove myself worthy of love. It’s a deep seated belief that I must deserve mercy if I expect to receive it. So I'm firmly resolved to prove to God, my deceased father, my family, friends and myself that I am in fact a good person and worthy of love. 
 
It brings a sigh to my tired soul to think of the years I spent trying to prove myself good enough. The sigh deepened  with each failure, broken resolution, unfinished task or unfulfilled dream.  This mirror of self analysis reminded me daily that I still wasn't good enough.  I believed my self judgments and reinforced those beliefs by sabotaging myself.
 
The irony is I’ve been deeply loved all along with the very love I always craved. But I was too stuck on my flaws to see. So how did I learn I was loved? Where did I get this new view of me? In a room with windows and a brand new mirror.

A Room with a View

Carl Sandburg said this. "I was foolish about windows. The house was an old one and the windows were small. I asked a carpenter to come and open the walls and put in bigger windows. ... I was hungry for windows." That's how I've felt for a long time. I'm tired of looking at me. I want to see God. I want to see beauty. I want to see others for who they are. Not for how they see me. "Give me a house full of windows Lord.  I'm weary of mirrors and looking at me."

So God's given me windows and a different mirror. The mirror of His Word. This mirror is accurate in what it reflects. The distorted mirror I always trusted lies. It reflects an image that's simply not true.  But in the mirror of God’s Word, I see truth. I’ve had this mirror in my house forever. But I never looked in it much.  Oh I've looked at it. But not in it. The truth in this mirror can set me free. But like an unused Bible, it's been in a back room of my mind collecting dust. 

Another way a self-portrait gets distorted is if someone I love and respect shames, ignores or rejects me. It makes me question my worth. And the younger I am, the more likely I’ll believe them. And look at me in the way they do. Or in the way I think they do. Maybe for the rest of my life. Unless someone else shows up who sees me differently. If I trust them, their view of me makes me doubt mine. This is my story. I saw me the way I thought my Dad did. Until someone else whose opinion I trust, saw me differently. Someone else who's important to me told me I am important to them.

So who is it that came along to challenge this distorted self-portrait I adopted from my father? My other father.
I'll share that story in the next post, but to sum it up; God is helping me see myself as He does: through eyes of mercy.

For now, I ask you to ponder this question. Have you ever asked "Why do I lack confidence and question my worth?"
Maybe the reason we lack confidence is because we question our worth. Maybe the mirror we're looking at is wrong.

NEXT POST: 'Seeing Myself through Eyes of Mercy'