I don’t look in the mirror often. Part of the reason is that I’ve seen myself often enough and I just don’t have the need to see what I look like anymore. I will wash my face, neck and ears. I’ll floss and brush my teeth. I’ll comb my hair. I’ll do all that without really looking at myself other than making sure my hair is parted in about the right place.

But one day I looked in the mirror and seemed to see another man. I looked more carefully into his eyes. I wanted to see what’s going on inside. I think that I saw the stress, even the pain when I look in his eyes. It doesn’t look like me. That’s funny because I don’t really know what I look like (not having spent much time looking at myself all these years.) But I see a man under a lot of stress. It’s a lot for him, but there’s nothing that I can do about it. He will just have to endure, and I know that he will with God’s grace and power.

There’s something else that I found which totally surprised me. It is more important than my own stress/pain thing. When I saw his pain I also saw the pain and the love of those around him. Think about it. If someone that you loved was in pain, wouldn’t that cause you a different kind of pain?

This new revelation is upsetting to me but an important one. Although I live daily with my disability I live in a sort of denial about it. Part of that denial seems to include not acknowledging the difficulty and pain that my disability causes others, specifically those closest to me, my wife and children.

So now I actually choose to look in this man’s eyes to see the reality of his pain and thus recall the pain that others feel so that I can better sympathize with them. What I see most of all is my wife’s love, hers and my children’s. She loves me so much to be able to live with me in an understanding way. That’s what husbands are called to do with their wives.

1st Peter 3:7 (in the NASB) says this: “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

My wife is a saint. She is born again so of course she is that kind of saint. But she is a saint in the sense that she shares my burden and, in a way, endures more pain than I do. Yet she is kind, sympathetic, gentle, understanding, and she is so even when I am being a jerk, not just because of my pain, but because of my sin, arrogance, insensitivity, …did I mention my arrogance?

I look in the mirror and see my pain and her love. And I begin to understand some things about life that are difficult to convey in these few words.

The really important things in God’s estimation are not those things which get the most attention. I get attention from people. But my wife gets God’s attention. He is pleased with her. It is an amazing perspective, to begin to see what is important to God. “those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor 12:22)

“Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.” (John 7:24) This is one of my favorite verses as a man who loves truth and hates pretense. Yet how easy it is to deceive oneself. Looking into the mirror has helped me. Looking into God’s mirror, (the Bible, of course), can do so much more to reveal deception and truth in someone’s life.

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” (James 1:22-24)

This is a serious admonition, one that I cannot overlook but must take to heart. I pray that I would never merely listen, but that I would obey God’s Word.

I do look into God’s mirror every day. And now I look into a physical mirror and try to remember what I see. I need to be more understanding of those around me, those who feel burden and pain because of my own pain and disability. I need to respond to their love by acknowledging it and reciprocating, loving them back with the same understanding and gentleness that they daily show me. I need to show love to them more and more, certainly more than I have been. This is what I’m intently trying to do.

I love my wife more now than I ever have before. In fact, for the last 24 years I have loved her more each year. But it is different now that I’m disabled – much different. The youthful joy has been replaced by a mature, steady, deep kind of love. It’s not as fun for either one of us I think mostly because of the reality and sadness of my painful disability. But we have our joyful times and I hope to have more of them as I am able to do so.

A related article would be Heros of compassion.