Mirror, mirror on the wall, what does God see when He looks at us all?

If there was anything good about being visually impaired for so long was that I was forced to be more in tuned with people's words, their actions and their heart rather than their physical appearance. I look back at that time in my life and see it as a blessing because of all the incredible relationships I was able to make only because God chose to show me their heart rather than their face. God has blessed me by restoring my vision and I pray everyday that as I rock on in this life with my new vision, I can remember to be wise with His precious gift and never use it to obsess over my or anyone else’s physical appearance.

The truth is, no matter how hard we try, we all struggle with physical appearances to some degree. We live in a broken, superficial world where we are continuously bombarded with “pop” culture television shows, advertisements, books and magazines that program our society to put far too much emphasis on outside “physical” beauty rather than our inside “spiritual” beauty. The Bible tells us that God will never judge man based on their outward appearance and neither should we. You see, when God looks at us, He sees straight past our height (or lack of it in my case), past our weight, past all of our physical traits, no matter how appalling or fine we think they are and He looks deep into our heart seeing our spiritual inner beauty.

If physical attractiveness was so important to God, then the Bible would have been written more like a dramatic novel where the main character, Jesus Christ, would have been described as a dashing, tall, dark and handsome hunk. That, however, was not the case. The book of Isaiah describes Jesus saying:

… He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2

Think about it. Jesus Christ, Our Creator’s very own son, certainly could have been created to have the most “super buff” body ever seen by mankind. He instead was created with an average "JOE"sph, everyday body and yet He was totally able to overcome the world, changing it forever.

As women, we seem to be naturally wired with the need to feel that we are beautiful both inside and out. I know many of us struggle with this daily asking that famous question: mirror, mirror on the wall, am I beautiful... just a little bit, just a little bit at all?

If you ever find yourself asking that question and well, if mirrors could talk back, I would hope its reply to you would go something like this… My precious friend, take a moment to think of some of the most beautiful things you have ever seen with your own two eyes such as a brilliant sunset, a beautiful flower and a most extraordinary butterfly. Think of all the care God took planning every tiny unique detail to make all of those beautiful creations and then know that He values YOU above all of those marvelous things. My friend, if you think a sunset or a flower looks amazingly beautiful; can you even begin to fathom how beautiful you are to God? So YES! You, my dear, are extravagantly beautiful!

It’s okay to want to look your best and it is certainly okay to appreciate the physical beauty of humans and nature as such beauty reveals to us God’s glorious creative ability. We just need to keep appearance in perspective and not allow it to become our obsession taking our focus off of the Lord. It is important to remember that just as the most brilliant sun “sets” and the darkness of night falls and just as the most beautiful flower comes to full bloom then falls to the ground, our physical beauty is at best temporary and only of this world, whereas, it is our “spiritual” beauty that has an everlasting and eternal dimension.

The look on my doctor’s faces are priceless when they see my road map of scars from my numerous abdominal and leg surgeries. One doctor recently told me, “You know Donna there are cosmetic procedures that can fix all that.” I thought about it for about half a second and told him thanks, but no thanks. You see, each one of these scars on my body represent a lesson learned or a blessing of healing that God wanted me to have…it may have blemished my temporary beauty but in some small way it enhanced my eternal beauty… I wouldn’t erase those scars or blessings for anything in this world.

It is unfortunate that society encourages many people to feel the need to spend some big money on some pretty “extreme” makeovers and painful procedures all for a temporary change to our temporary bodies. The good news is that it is far less painful for every single one of us to make an everlasting change to our “eternal” bodies (souls) and we don’t have to take out a loan or deplete our life savings to do so. You see my dear friends, the most expensive “makeover” available to all of mankind has already been paid for in full with the blood of Jesus Christ. All you have to do in order to accept this spiritual makeover is to invite Him into your heart, ask for His forgiveness, love Him and live for Him. Once you do that you can proudly say: mirror, mirror on the wall, I really don’t care what you think at all. For I have Jesus in my heart and he tells me I am God’s most precious art.