The Mirror
- Dola Williams
- Sep 24, 2024
- 3 min read
I was passing by the mirror and I had to stop and go back.
I thought I saw my eldest sister who left this earth, at the time of this post, twelve years ago. I stepped back in front of the mirror and peered directly into it and it was just me – looking like her, looking like my other sister, looking like my other sister, looking my other sister and looking like my Mom.
I could peer into the mirror, but I avoid looking into my Moms eyes. Her piercing look into mines is full of questions, doubt and disbelief. I think she sees her past and I am trying to determine if I’m seeing my future. Her strength carried her normal weight for 97 years and now the fragility of her body is too heavy for her to manage. The strength of the sharpness of her mind says what it means from the bowels of history stored in her mind and then collides with what she intends to say in the moment.
The strength of her tall stature has been chipped away by a stroke and arthritis. The strength of her love language to serve is not serving her when she needs it the most. And the strength of her endurance for pain is not beneficial to the physical healing process.
The reflection of both her past and my future live in the balance of we are as alike as we are different in the same way. The thirty-five years that separate us as mother and daughter runs parallel in our lives as she lived in her time, and I immolate what she lived in my time. The generational nuances from loving and serving, cooking and sewing, learning and teaching to going to church and serving God made the parallel look like a traffic roundabout – both of us trying to figure it out where to exit.
The ripple effect of a reflection creates the live, and in living color definition of – as my Dad said, “the camera only takes what it sees.”
I imagine that I am the reflection of her intentions and what she sees is not always what she intended. I pray that she sees me and all my sisters, like I saw all of us in the reflection when I looked into the mirror. As my sisters and I serve our Mom the best and the challenges of her strength are reflected from the simplest way to bring her a fresh cup of water, to folding the corners of a sheet on the bed, to interpreting what she meant based on what we recall from our history with her.
Her strengths were given to each of us, we developed them to give her back what her strength gave to us at this time in her life. We aren’t existing at the roundabout - although sometimes it looks like we are running circles around each other and colliding into our heart’s intentions. The collisions are a ripple effect of her strength in each of us.
Looking into her eyes when her tears are falling across her lips and she’s clearly asking God, “why do you still have me here,” clears the reflection of anyone else in the mirror. In fact, I see my past, present and future. I see that His promises are why my past is my past, how my present is a direct reflection of my obedience to Him and my future is dependent upon not just receiving His promises but extending – with the love of Jesus – grace and mercy towards others to reflect Christ…and not my strength. We are all still here, no matter what the circumstances are, until God gets His Glory, until His promises are fulfilled in our lives, and His perfect plan for our lives is manifested.
We are all still here, no matter what the circumstances are, until God gets His Glory, until His promises are fulfilled in our lives, and His perfect plan for our lives is manifested.
God has my full attention as he reminds me of one of my most quoted scriptures:
The same mercies that I’m expecting and receive from Him, as His daughter, are what He expects me to extend to others. If that wasn’t enough, the reflection further stated, as loud as like when you put your glasses on to hear, that the greatness of His faithfulness has no beginning or end or no circumstantial considerations.
That His mercies are new even when you are living out the consequences of your own strength. That reflection clearly moves you into “becoming” like Him. Ultimately, the intention of her strength is being honored by God. And then no matter what my situation is His mercies are not just for me to proclaim for my own sake but are for His Glory in His timing.