It’s been a very long time since I have been inspired to write. Perhaps it was the pressures of school or the lack of social intrigue. Yet here I am again with thoughts in my head spinning like a whirlpool hungry to swallow pieces of emotional debris that is hoping to escape onto the page so that my heart-mind connection can resume its peaceful flow.

My omission was not of ill-intent but an attempt to avoid diving into the subject before I was able to process my internal experience. The words spoken: “God gave me permission to leave and told me to go home to my parents…” The words unspoken: “He also told me to Remember My Mirrors.”

Mirrors, mirrors, what are my mirrors! This term haunts me. When it was warped, it morphed the shape of my identity. When it was broken, it sliced my soul. Yet, I could still see myself clearly beneath the wounds… I could still see specks of who I truly am within them. “Remember my mirrors.” HA! Yes, mirrors have been overcoming and seeing my strength, but they’ve also been deep pain. Because they’ve been the reflection of my darkest parts for so long, I began to assume that was their only role: To expose my “stuckness” and to force me to face my demons. I am grateful for those mirrors. I love who I am, but I have been challenged to shift my experience of what it means to remember my mirrors.

I stand before this mirror with hope, with faith unseen. I dance in front of this mirror without shame. I make silly faces and see it making them back at me. I don’t have to search for the real me through shards or bumps in its surface. But the point is… I can see. The rawness. The nakedness. The hesitation but assurance. The peaceful excitement. The sameness in our differences. The freedom in control. Joy.

This is a different mirror than anything I’ve seen. But I know exactly why…

A spotlight shines on its wholeness.

… That your joy may be full. He is the light and in Him is no darkness…. (1 John 1)

“And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them” (Isaiah 42).

I have spent years looking into broken mirrors. I hadn’t known the purity of my reflection because I was standing in the dark.

“But the path of the just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” “Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: Love her, and she shall keep thee… Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: She shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: A crown of glory shall she deliver to thee… Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: Keep her, for she is thy life.” (Proverbs 4).

I had been given the opportunity to selfishly examine my values and identity in those mirrors of the past. But with the light I see that I have been given the gift and honor is being a different kind of reflection of another… of a God-fearing man who has the capacity to wear his heart on his sleeve and the courage to shine.

Amen.