Some years, I have goals. Some years, I have a theme. Some years, I have both.
This year, I knew the theme was going to be “the mirror.”
What is the Mirror?
The mirror, of course, is the place you look at yourself. You see how your hair looks fantastic or looks like a total mess. You see how white your teeth are or how stained. You see how your eyes are glistening or look empty. You see your physical appearance in crystal clear form. Unless your mirror is dirty.
While I look dashingly handsome all the time, cough cough, the truth is the mirror shows me much more these days.
The focus, this year, was on the mirror for my emotional and relational health.
Let’s just say it wasn’t in good shape.
We aren’t even halfway through the year, and already, this mirror has shown me more shortcomings than I care to admit.
I heard someone talking the other day about the difference between how we treat physical injuries vs. emotional injuries. My mind immediately considered how we treat a broken leg vs. a broken heart. How we treat a virus in our body vs. a virus in our mind. How we treat a cancer in our cells vs. how we treat a cancer in our relationships.
Come on!
You have to go there, Omer.
I’m going.
A Broken Bone vs. A Broken Heart
Here’s what breaks my heart to admit: I’ve actually tried to ignore a broken bone. When my son was a tiny guy, he jumped (or fell), not sure which, off a bunk bed. He cried for a long time, and I thought it was just a small injury. Hannah thought differently. We didn’t have health insurance and money was tight and I was a freaking moron. We waited it out for 24 hours to see if it was just a small sprain or not. He was crying and in pain whenever he tried moving around on it. We took him to the doctor (or rather, Hannah said I’m going whether you like it or not) and indeed, she was right, it was broken. I felt so bad then. And I feel even worse now. I’m still trying to let God forgive me and then accept that forgiveness for myself.
One broken bone, multiple broken hearts.
The tears and the sobs right now…
My oldest son and I have had struggles in our relationship, and I know some how, some way, in ways I can’t even describe, this has had an effect. Somehow he’s always known mom is there for him in the toughest times and dad hasn’t been. I’m working so hard to change that narrative. I’ll have to ask and receive his forgiveness too, if he’s willing to give it. I pray it isn’t too late.
Wuff. What’s next?
A Virus of the Body vs. a Virus of the Mind
I don’t want to go there.
When I was younger, I don’t know what all I experienced, but I am sure there were times of emotional neglect. Not sure about physical neglect. We grew up fairly poor, and sometimes you ate hamburger helper without the hamburger to help. Sometimes you had cheese and mustard sandwiches without the lunch meat that the cheese and mustard were supposed to sit on top of. I didn’t know what real fruit or vegetables looked like or tasted like because I only ever had fruit from a can. Apples, bananas, watermelon, sure. But what was a raspberry? A kiwi? A mango? What did any vegetable other than corn on the cob look like? My potatoes came from a box. I sure as heck didn’t know what arugula, or spinach, or asparagus, or shallots were. Okra? Butternut squash? Huh?
I’ve had many viruses over the course of my life and lived through them. But the virus of my mind that I am still trying to shake 30+ years later is that there will never be enough. The virus that we live in a world of scarcity not a world of abundance. The virus that if we don’t save every morsel of leftovers, if we don’t eat the expired, burnt, or failed recipe, we might not have food tomorrow to eat.
The symptoms of this virus show up in a thousand other ways. Let’s not bore you with all of them. Suffice it to say:
There’s a huge difference between being smart with your money vs. being a miser. Between being thrifty vs. stingy. Between being economical vs. a cheapskate.
I wrote a book in 2015 called “Give and Grow Rich.” For years, it helped. Then the book sat on the shelf too long and I didn’t remind myself of the lessons I had learned. My mental immune system got weak and the virus came back at just the wrong time. It has nearly destroyed me and my family.
That’s so painful to admit. But it’s the truth.
We all have viruses of the mind that we either ignore and try to live through. Or we find a way to treat, take supplements to help, and stay on guard against.
What’s the virus of your mind? Do you have one? Are there a couple?
It’ll hurt to go even deeper.
I’m going to have to.
Vulnerability. Healthy vulnerability.
Cancers of the Cells vs. Cancers of Relationships
Cancers.
I’m not a medical professional, but I know there are cancers of all different types. Lung cancer, throat cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer, all the cancers. They’re dreadful. Terrible. And somehow, we’ve come up with ways to treat them, fight them off, and “cure” them, at least for a time.
My grandfather is in his 90s. He is the last one of my four. He has fought off more cancers than I know. He is still kicking. A couple of my kids and I got to have dinner with him a month ago. So good for us all to be together and laugh and hear stories and ask questions. Physically, I don’t know how he does it. Doing chemo in his 90s and can still get up to go out to eat with us.
But one thing I do know: there are more cancers than physical cancers.
I don’t know my grandpa, my extended family, or even my own parents well enough to know all the relationship cancers in the mix. I know of a couple big ones. A couple of situations that needed relationship chemo and relationship hospitalizations to overcome. A couple of cancers that still haven’t been diagnosed or treated, but live there, destroying relationships gradually over the years.
Every family has relational cancers. Some go undiagnosed for generations. Some go untreated for decades. They get diagnosed, but never treated. The relationship exists as a shell of what it could actually be. Sadly, some relationship cancers metastasize and destroy the whole family unit. I’ve seen it happen a few times.
I’ll tell you one of mine.
I feel sick even thinking back on it.
Pornography was the relationship cancer of my teenage years.
I’ll write a whole separate post (or a few) on that topic. Thankfully, the Lord saved me from it near the tailend of my teenage years. But the pit was deep. The cancer was consuming. It destroyed a lot in me. Mentally, emotionally, relationally. Just because I was “delivered” from it, doesn’t mean I didn’t have to live with the consequences or the after-effects for years.
Pornography is a cancer to your relationships. Just as strong and insidious and destructive to your relationships as a physical cancer is to your body. Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4. The cancer will destroy you if you don’t diagnose it, treat it, and experience healing from it. I’ll dive into it, with tact and discretion, in another post.
Here’s what you need to know:
What’s the Mirror Showing You?
The mirror shows you more, the longer you face it.
The mirror is so hard to hold.
Men and women alike. We have broken legs and broken hearts. We have viruses of the body and viruses of the mind. We have cancers in our cells and cancers in our relationships.
What needs facing?
What needs diagnosed?
What needs treated?
Keep going, my friend.
Omer Redden 