Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Seeing Myself

In the first Harry Potter book, he comes across the Mirror of Erised. In this mirror, one can see their heart's desire. Dumbledore warns Harry of the dangers of seeing your true heart's desire. And perhaps we could judge that a person's true nature is determined by their desires.

In Doctrine and Covenants 76:94 we read about celestial souls: "They who dwell in his presence are the church of the Firstborn; and they see as they are seen, and know as they are known, having received of his fulness and of his grace."

The path to God is like discovering your own Mirror of Erised. We begin to take a hard look at what we truly desire. We discover the inconsistencies between who we are, and how we want to be seen. Or rather, we see ourselves in the way that God sees us. This can be good and bad.

The idea of spending an eternity staring harshly into the reality of who I am at my core . . . admittedly, this is scary. And so I know where my journey has to begin. I have to imagine an eternity of seeing myself for exactly who I am. If I look hard into my own mirror of Erised, am I comfortable with what I see?

Not entirely. As most adults, I've managed to juggle my strengths and my flaws pretty well.

So I'm going to take a hard look in my mirror and see what I can change so that I can be comfortable seeing myself as I am seen.

It's gonna be a good journey. I'm kind of excited for it. And I'm incredibly grateful that I have a little bit of time to get myself together.

3 comments:

Melanie said...

But also, the joy of love is that you see yourself reflected in the eyes of someone who loves you. So even if you don't love what you see, seeing it through that other person's eyes makes it OK.

Self reflection for the sake of it, especially if we're going to be too hard on ourselves, is often more dangerous than it's worth. But filtering it through the eyes of friends and lovers brings amazing perspective on what we can change to be better. . .

Eve said...

So true! It is nice to see yourself in someone else's eyes. You're so wise! I can't wait to hang out with you more often.

Clarissa Jane said...

i think you are marvelous!
i think you are wonderful.

when i look at you i see a beautiful, strong, independent and crazy-intelligent woman.

and i love that woman.