Do you know who you are? Who do you see when you look in the mirror? I'm not always sure. I think that we all have a hard time seeing ourselves clearly. Our self perception is shaped, and warped, by how other people treat us, the things other people say to us or about us, our regrets and our memories and things that have happened to us over which we may have had only partial control, or no control at all.
My own self perception tends to be clouded by a standard of perfection. Because I expect such a level of excellence from myself, and because I am so very far from perfect, what I wind up seeing when I look in the mirror are all the mistakes, the mess ups, the failures in the forefront of who I am. I take them on as elements of my identity.
But I think that is a mistake.
Because there is Someone else who has something to say about who we are - Someone with a perfect perception.
We would do well to listen.
This is a poem that found its way onto the page of my journal one day as I scribbled down words in the midst of that struggle to see myself for who I really am.
Royal Letter
To: The Sickly Slave Girl
This is your reality, Holy Princess
O Beloved of the Star Breather
He asked you to be his daughter
You accepted. Papers drawn
Were signed and sealed
with royal crest
Of the Monarch, and highest
Authority in every realm
Of heaven, earth and hell.
You cannot undo
this thing He’s done
Oh, you can run
But why would you?
Besides, He will come seeking you
Treading stars
like stepping stones
Across the far-flung sea of space.
He cannot bear to leave you lost;
You are too precious to His heart
He holds the scroll
that bears your name;
I say again, you cannot change it!
Your name is there
in red and white
Blood letters in the Book of Life.
I know you stumbled as you ran
Did you not feel His able hand?
He picks you up and dusts you off
And cries, “Come, Darling!
Let’s be off!
We’ll skip on mountain peaks,
the highest!
Breathe in sparkling
streams of starlight!
Dance in moonlit
meadows laughing,
Fall down breathless,
lie there talking!”
Don’t you know the
passion burning
In the heart of
our Great King?
The Prince,
He asked you for your hand
And you,
in rapt delight said “yes!”
Your faults cannot undo this thing
O Favored one of Sovereign King.
Just let them go, stop holding on
To things He’s already forgotten.
He has much better things to do
And say to your heart anyway.
Stop and listen to Him whisper
Words of comfort, soft and tender.
Look into the glass and see
That He has turned you into me.
From: The Daughter of the King.
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