​14. Like So Much Dust

Fat thighs. Big nose. Fine hair.

Ugly.

When you’re twelve and the world is whirling around you, playing its hardwired games, you realize the cost of losing.

Of being mirror-deficient and punishing yourself with hot sun and the slightest bit to eat.

You live in a house of perfection, and you? You are the least perfect thing within it.

And so relying on your own ingenuity, you move Heaven and hell to change things, never taking a moment to count up the cost.

I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t rely on my own eyes nor do I see the mirror as friend or foe.

It just is.

In Ourselves by Charlotte Mason, she mentions how we are neither to think highly of ourselves or poorly. In fact, the best thing is not to think of ourselves at all.

I believe this is what living in Christ truly is.

There’s a respect for your being, your physical make up. There’s thankfulness for movement and breath but only in the capacity of accomplishing God’s true purpose for us.

But the ultimate accomplishment is a rested soul. An undeniable knowing that the outside will die and be like so much dust. That your name and legacy and all the things you did in one tiny lifetime will go unnoticed and unheard of in years to come. But who you are in Jesus will never fade away.

Now that? That is what’s beautiful.