Day II: My crappy self-portrait

So, this whole mirror fast is full of lessons, apparently. This morning, I was jogging along the river. It was one of those crisp, bright mornings, where the sun shone bright, frozen puddles needed to be avoided, and ducks wandered the path in front, refusing to step foot in the cold cold water. During my 3rd mile, I noticed I was casting two shadows ahead of me; one from the sun, the other from the sun's reflection on the water. They were sat on top of one another, following my every move. The shadow cast by the sun was below the other, and was darker, more defined and showed my entire body, head to toe. The one cast by the reflection was above it, and was hazier, flickered, and only revealed me from my shoulders up. I thought it was pretty sweet, and kept on running. When the image cropped back into my head later today, I realised it painted an accurate picture of me.

When I look at myself, when I think about myself, I don't see the whole of me. When I look in the mirror, I see what I look like at the moment I look in the mirror. As soon as I remove myself from the mirror, I no longer know what I look like, I have only what I saw in the mirror to go by, and won't know what I look like until I next look in a mirror. My image of myself flickers. I only see moments of who I outwardly am throughout the day. Honestly, this outward part of me is the part of me I spend most time working on and thinking about, but it's only a part of me. There's a whole bigger part of me inside. And this part, I can't fully understand. I am a complex human being, acting in ways I often don't get, with capabilities beyond my knowledge. If I did fully know me, my actions would never surprise me. I would be able to predict exactly how I would react to everything that comes my way. Like the shadow cast by the river, the picture I paint is incomplete. And more often than not, I can't bring myself to love this incomplete me.
When God looks at me, thinks about me, He sees all of me, inside and out. He sees my personality, my past, my thoughts, my limitations, my potential, my face, my stomach, my hair, and all the bits of me I don't even know are part of me. His view is complete. He created me, he's bound to know how I work! He sees all of me, and LOVES me all the same.
Yet I ignore what He thinks of me, and I put my perspective, largely determined by other people's perspectives, above His. The perspective I pursue in the mirror, in other people's opinions, is an incomplete version painted by imperfect me! The only way to love me is to drop all other paintings and pursue the masterpiece image drawn up by a perfect God, who probably finished it and framed it, and has it hung up straight!

I'll end this one with a challenge: tell God you don't want to know what you, or anyone else on this earth, thinks about you, but you want to see you from His point of view. Every day. Every time you feel inadequate. Every time your insecurities creep up. Tell Him. He wants to hear it, and I'm fairly sure He'll know what to do with your crappy self-portrait.

Actually, I'll end with this: "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago" Ephesians 2:10