How does the world see you?
How do you see yourself?
When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see someone of worth? Someone who is considered "good"? Someone beautiful? Someone you like? What do you see?
One time, I was looking in the mirror, and I hated everything I saw and I thought I saw. However, was what I looking at true? Was my reflection who I really was? Was this a true reflection of myself? We often lament how we wish we could see others the way that God sees them. We wish to see with God's Eyes, but then we never take the time to look at ourselves with God's Eyes. How can we ever be women of virtue, women of God, if we never look at ourselves as God sees us? In order to understand our reflection, we must either change the mirror, or change the eyes.
How does God see us? When God looks down upon His Daughters, what does He see?
First of all, He sees us as His Creation. Genesis 2:22 records the creation of woman by God. God cast a deep sleep over Adam and then takes a rib from his side and fashions women. In her book "City of Ladies" Christine de Pizine notes that God made woman not from the dust, but from clay created by God. Woman was made from God's own playdough. Can you not touch your face and trace the very hands of God as He molded and contoured your cheeks, forehead, and chin? Touch your eyes, and imagine the very thumbs of God pressing down to create the hollow depth. Your nose, shaped and touched by the same hands that thew the stars into the sky. And note in Genesis that woman was made, then brought to Adam. Her creation was an intimate process between her and the Lord. Can you see her being fashioned and laid to rest among the flowers in Eden? Can you see God breathing life into her? Her chest expanding as the first intake of air begins to circulate throughout this newly created body? Perhaps God whispered for her to wake. Perhaps He waited till her eyes fluttered opened on their own. Perhaps He cradled her so the first thing her new eyes would see, would be His face. The important thing to remember is that her creation was between Him and her. She was His first little girl, and He took delight in her creation. Psalm 139:14-16 says, "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (ESV). God has created you to be wonderful. He took delight in your creation, and made it a moment of intimacy between only you and Him. You hold no secret from Him, for what artist forgets His most precious work? You are His creation. I believe that saying we are anything less than wonderful is to show that we know nothing of creation. We know nothing of being crafted. What honor and love is there in knowing that we are crafted by the very Hand of the God of the universe? This grand artist, the ultimate artisan, and then we consider ourselves any less than marvolous? We are lovely, wonderful, beautiful. We are God's Creation.
God also sees us as His lost sheep. We find in Luke 15:4-7, the parable of the lost sheep. Jesus puts forth the example that a shepard who has lost one lamb, will not go about to find it? And once he has found it, he rejoices over his find? In the same way, God searches for us. He longs to rejoice over His find in you. Jesus calls Himself "the Good Shepard". And in John 10, Jesus speaks again about the love He has for His sheep. He says that He knows His sheep, and the sheep know Him. There is a personal connection that Christ and God have with their sheep. This connection is part of the foundation of our relationship with God. Ever since sin entered this world, we have been separated from our Creator, and even though this separation is our fault, God still sees us a lost sheep. His favorite lamb that has gone astray and needs to be found, to be redeemed. God is our good shepard who cares so much for his sheep, that not only will He find them, but He will lay His life down for the sheep (John 15:13).
And this fact, this "laying down His life" leads us to the fact that we are God's Sacrifice. John 3:16 says this truth so beautifully and simply. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Jesus was sent to this world to die for you. God loves you so much, that He sent His only son, to die. God sent His son before you even existed, to die, to become your sacrifice. And the truth that makes it even harder to comprhend, the truth of His love, is that if it had only been you that needed a Savoir, if there was you to die for, then Jesus would still have come, and still have died. "When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (ESV). God sees you as someone to die for. If all of history changed at this pivotal moment when Christ died, when the veil was torn, and humanity received their undeserved salvation, then why do we throw it away when we look at ourselves? We can look at others as someone that Jesus died for, and we can tell them with conviction. We believed it once ourselves, but we don't live it. Why don't we live the death of Christ?
And once we fully believe the fact that we are God's sacrifice and accept the death of Christ on the cross and His Resurrection as the only means of our salvation, we become God's Princess. Proverbs 31 is known as the passage of the virtous women, or the perfect woman. Verse 22 says that this woman dresses herself in robes of fine linen and purple. Both of these items would only be worn by women with riches and prestage. Purple is the color of royalty because in order to create it, one must (during the time that Proverbs was written) head to the coast and find a special oyster/clam like creature known as the Murex. One Murex equals one drop of purple dye. Having an entire cloth of purple was a pricey investment. Yet God says that His perfect woman arrays herself in purple, the most costly color, the most royal color. He tells us to dress in purple as a symbol of our royalty through Him. Your Heavenly Father is the King of the universe, of reality as we know it. We let others and ourselves tear us down, when we are of royalty. We are princesses and must treat and carry ourselves as such. No one can take away our royalty. John 10:28-29 says that no one can pluck us out of the Father's Hand. He is there to protect and keep you. No one can take away what God has made you to be.
In the story of Snow White, the evil stepmother's mirror is a pivotal character. She not only stares into it, but ask out loud the questions we never speak. "Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" We look in the mirror and ask the question of "are we enough?" and we tense as we wait for the answer, assuming that the mirror will answer the same as it did to the evil stepmother. "Snow white is more fair", "No, you're not enough, never were enough, will never be enough." However, we need not to fear that answer, because its a farce. We are enough, we were always enough, we will always be enough. This enough comes from God. We are His Creation, His Lost Sheep, His Sacrifice, and His Princess. This is God's opinion of us; we can either believe it or not. We believe it about others, why don't we believe it for ourselves?
Once time I looked into the mirror and I hated what I saw, and what I thought I saw. Then I looked past myself and looked to God for my reflection. That is the reflection that I want to see every time I look at myself. This is the reflection that I want others to see. This is the reflection I claim and stand upon. This reflection is Christ in and through me.
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