Mirrors are everywhere. Have you ever counted the mirrors in your house? Just in my house alone, there are eleven mirrors. Eleven! So whenever I walk through my house, I can see my reflection countless times a day without thinking about it. How many times a day do you look in a mirror? How many times a day do you check your make-up or your hair? When you look back at that reflection, what do you see? Sometimes a pretty face, a few new wrinkles, a new pimple, or maybe a grey hair that you are sure wasn’t there the day before. Perhaps a reminder to call the stylist to make an appointment to get rid of said grey hair?
Then we go about our day, our day gets stressful, things go wrong, things get better, we look in the mirror again (maybe it’s the rearview mirror this time), time to pick up the kids, things get stressful again, time to go to practice, time to make dinner, nevermind let’s just pick up dinner, now I feel guilty for eating out, ugh, look in the mirror again, I forgot to call my stylist, is that another grey hair? Then your husband says, “Honey I think you look great….what do you mean that’s not the right thing to say right now?”
Marriage is A Mirror
Have you ever sat before your significant other and looked at him as though he were your mirror? What do you see? What is looking back at you?
Jesus said in Matthew 19:5-6, “ For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two of them will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Sometimes that one flesh thing can be a tiny bit of a challenge. Now let’s look into that mirror. You’ve spat out something ugly, you get an ugly reflection. Maybe something beautiful is staring at you because you are doing something beautiful for your person. Is it more ugly or beautiful in your reflection right now?
Jon and I went to an FCA couples retreat in January 2020, right before COVID-19 started shutting the world down. The pastor began with the scriptures in Psalm 139 23-24 “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” He had us turn and look at each other and said, “Now you are looking in the mirror, marriage is a mirror that shows us who we are!” I will never forget that as long as I live; it has stuck with me since that day. There is so much raw truth in looking into your husband’s eyes and viewing yourself as he does. Reliving the conversations you had beforehand, the interactions, situations you’ve handled. Was I the nicest I could have been? Could I have given him a little more grace?
Ladies, I am the luckiest girl in the world. I have the most adoring husband ever, most would be jealous, and everyone should be! This man, oh this man, he has loved me with every ounce of his being for the past 10 or so years like how a good country music love song is written. We are a flipping Hallmark movie for goodness sake. However, I know, I am a lot sometimes. I know this because I’m JoAnn Miller’s daughter and Larry Miller had the patience of Job. (If ya’ll knew my momma and daddy, you’d know the humor in that!) I also let my fears of the past creep in sometimes. Laminations 3:40 says, “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” Taking a look at ourselves in the mirror first, examining our own ways, allows us a chance to get what we put into our marriages.
Some of our parents had perfect marriages and that could be hard to live up to, some were married for 50 years but times were hard, some of us were children of divorce, and some of us may have been in previous relationships that ended in betrayal. We can not let past reflections be the reflections of our marriages now. 2 Thessalonians 3:5 says “May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance” Our hearts, God protects our precious hearts and we can receive and give God’s love through marriage because with God, marriage is stronger! Marriage makes us better, and our person makes us better because we are one flesh with God.
In His Image
In Mark 10:45 Jesus paid a price for His bride, us, His church, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." How are we reflecting Christ if we the church are His bride? If Jesus' reflection were in the mirror looking back at us, would we look or act differently?
Every relationship we have is a mirror, not just our spouse, but also the ones with our children, our coworkers, and our family, and if we don’t like the reflection we are getting back, maybe it’s time to make a change. Revelation 19:7 says "Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready." God can still be in our stories, and there is love and grace in the mirror, for we are, after all, the bride of Jesus Christ.
From the looking glass of my heart,
Erica