A couple of days ago, I panicked as I found an intruder in our house. It was early in the morning. I had just finished brushing my teeth when I looked up, and there he was, staring at me. He was the scariest-looking man I’ve seen in a long time. He didn’t say anything; he just stared at me, as I stared back at him.
My panic turned to relief when I realized who this man was. It was me – in the mirror. There I was, in all my early morning glory – hair unbrushed, teeth unbrushed, face unwashed. It was hard to look at.
I’m sure you have had a similar experience. It happens to all of us. Cindy Crawford said, “Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.”
The good news was that there was still time to repair the damage – or at least cover it up. Before facing the world, I did everything in my power to become the person I wanted people to think I looked like, rather than who I really was. No one wants to see that.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I can relate to the pastor who was asked, “Is it a sin for people to wear make-up?” He responded, “For most of us, it’s a sin not to.”
But at some point, we need to trade in our vanity for reality.
Recovery Step: Yes, we need to clean ourselves up before going out in public. But in recovery, we learn to focus on the more important things. We embrace the words of Solomon, who said, “Then I considered all which my hands had done and labored to do, and behold, all was vanity and chasing after the wind and there was no profit under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11).
