Lenten Photo Challenge Day 5 – Reflection

NOTE:  My blog has traditionally been all business, but for at least a little while it is going to become intensely personal.  During Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter, I am participating in a photo challenge.  The way it works is that the organizers have given us a list of words, and every day we are supposed to take and share a picture based upon that word.  Because I hardly ever do things the easy way, I am also attempting to write a devotional that goes with these pictures.  I will probably take the weekends off and will also quite likely miss a few days.  Hopefully not too many.   Last year I participated in a similar challenge.  This link will take you to my 2013 Lenten challenge. This years challenge is entirely blog-based.  This year the challenge is sponsored by Catholic Sistas. 

Please pray for me and/ or bear with me, and if this isn’t your cup of tea, just keep on checking for portrait posts in between these challenges — or check back in after Easter.

REFLECTION

Maybe I’m weird, but I think it’s fun to look at reflections in warped shiny things.  Things like spoons and bathtub faucets and magnifying mirrors.   Well…. The older I get, maybe not so much the magnifying mirrors (SCARY), but you get the idea.

On one side of a spoon, your cheeks and nose get all  huge and round while your chin and forehead disappear, and on the other side of the spoon your whole face puckers and turns upside down.

Go ahead

 get a spoon.

I’ll be here all week.

What if we didn’t have decent mirrors, but all we had was spoons?  We wouldn’t have a clue what we really looked like.  Hmmmph.  We wouldn’t even be too sure which end was up.

Back in the days that the books of our Bible were being written, they didn’t have good mirrors, just polished pieces of whatever metal was common in those days.  Perhaps the best reflection a person would ever see of himself/herself was in very still clear water – until a fish swam by and messed up the whole thing.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he tries to explain that we have no clue how great God’s glory really is and what He has in store for us when we draw near to Him because we are looking at God through a spotty and warped piece of glass.

When I was a baby girl, my daddy who also happened to be my first  photography instructor, took beautiful photographs of me. ZILLIONS of them.    He would shoot a whole roll of film and run down the hill to my grandparents’ house where he had a darkroom, and he would develop them all.  You should SEE my baby book!   It’s embarrassing . . . but not  in a bad way.  Oh my it’s amazing!

Before too long, though, I entered my  rebellious years  where I thought everything  that was connected with my parents was stupid. It got harder and harder for Dad to get decent photographs of me – and when he did, I didn’t even want to see them  or believe that they were any good.

That’s a shame because nobody else cared enough to portray me like he did.

  Over time, the only images I ever saw of myself were those taken by people  who either lacked the skills or  who didn’t care about the end result.  Some of these people, I think, even got a charge out of embarrassing me.  It wasn’t long before  I started to  see myself as an UGLY… scraggly . . .zit-faced . . . snaggletoothed . . . frizzy-haired . . . bow-legged . . . UNDESIREABLE — oh, and did I say UGLY girl.  Math-skills and music talent eluded me too, do I felt fairly worthless.

YUK … who could EVER love a girl like THAT?

When we turn our back on God, our Father, we also turn our back on the beauty and blessings that He has in store for us.

Not too long ago   I had a chance to swap headshots with a  talented local photographer who is also a friend.  Jayna Balcer took  the time to really see ME.    And yes . . . I still have big teeth, no chin,bow-legs, and frizzy hair — but she STILL made me look pretty dang good. And that picture, the little one in the middle DOES look like ME!

WHOAH!

What a shame that I only saw myself  through a distorted lens of sinful rebellion  for so long.

Slowly . . . oh so slowly, I am learning to feel comfortable in my own skin and to see God’s glory everywhere I look.

and because I am beginning to see Him, I am beginning — only just beginning to shine — spiritually. Forget the physical, it’s all getting wrinkled and droopy by now anyway.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV

Dear Lord, please help me TAKE THE TIME to REFLECT your love and glory through my warped soul so that eveyone I touch in a day can see a glimmer of YOU.  If I must be warped, at least let me shine brightly. Amen.

2 Comments

  1. What a testimony to your faith. I loved what you said and the photographs you include.Thanks.

  2. Thank you for the love, Nick. This project was fun to do and also made me dig deep and think.

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