Do I really look like that?

After lunch on our back deck one warm day, an artist friend, visiting with her husband, asked all the grandbeans who would sit still if she could draw their picture. Four of the children managed to restrain their wiggles, and the results charmed us all.

Like most children, our grandbeans love to draw – usually on paper, but sometimes on skin and other things, oh dear. Since Denyse’s visit, the girls have taken up portraiture themselves. Their drawings explode with a tangle of exuberant lines. I adore the pictures they give the Preacher and me. We often display them like fine art.

The childish drawings make everyone smile. I sent a fresh sketch to my sister early one morning – a portrait four-year-old Sherah had drawn of me while trying to be still during her preacher father’s sermon.

The ping of my incoming text woke Beverly up. “Hah! That’s as hilarious as it is amazing,” she responded, commenting specifically on the portrait’s noticeable bald spot.  “I laughed so hard,” she said, “that I couldn’t go back to sleep.”

I don’t have a bald spot, but I forgive Sherah. Children draw what they see from their perspective. The top of a head must be uninspiring to any artist, let alone to a four-year-old pixie who can’t even see the top of someone tall.

Her drawing of me features a startling set of teeth – three large ones on top, and six below, some as sharp as a shark’s. (I forgive the little artist for that too.) She also added nose holes in the bottom two corners of my triangle nose. “These are not details that most children draw,” my sister commented. “Gotta keep that. Maybe frame it.”

When I had prepared for church that Sunday morning, mind you, I took special care with my appearance. The mirror told me I looked good, even better than usual. But when I saw myself through my grandchild’s eyes – bald, bug-eyed and shark-toothed, I had to go back to my mirror to see if I could see what she saw.

That’s not the only time I’ve wanted to check my true appearance. I’ve learned that, like Sherah’s portrait of me, when it comes to loving others, some people see me differently than I see myself.

In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul gives a thorough list of what it means to practice genuine love. And in those times when pride tempts us to feel we’ve passed the ugly test, he confirms in verse twelve that God sees the true state of our hearts – and wants to bring us face to face with that truth.

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

God, as much as we’d rather not see it, show us the truth about our love-walk – and help us to be what you want to see.

Sherah's portrait. And she thinks I'm beautiful!
Sherah’s portrait. And she thinks I’m beautiful!

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