mirror – KARLA LEES

mirror, Mirror

August 4, 2015August 4, 2015 Karla Lees

I look in the mirror & see white hairs, saggy abs and many other flaws.

God caught my glimpse in the mirror & informed me I was no longer to focus on my lack.

Then through worship & a moment suspended in time, He showed me the way I look to Him.

Pure, spotless Bride.

And His eyes as He looked towards me?&

I never want to look into any other mirror to see any other reflection but the one I found in His gaze.

Unadorned, unabashed, without barrier, Love.

Unadorned because it is so beautiful it needs no other packaging but Him.

Unabashed because He has no shame in how He feels towards us, nor any reason to hide it.

Without barrier because He is running towards me as fast as I come running towards Him.

Mutual pursuit was seen in that brief vision I experienced.

And the background wasn’t the sight of my bathroom in the mirror’s reflection…

It was the radiant glow of wide open spaced adorned with natural wonder….. fresh growth & newly opened wild flowers on display, birds chirping their love songs…
all for their Creator, mirroring back their thanks & love to the One who first loved them.

For He loves the works of His hands, and took great care when creating it all.

Especially man & woman, as we reflect directly back to our Creator, in whose image we were made.

So the next time you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, remember how precious you are to Him, and how beautiful He finds you.

His perception is the true one we are to believe, not our earthy eyes or the comments of others.

For when we invite Jesus into our hearts, and the Spirit takes up residence, we begin to resemble our Maker all the more, and His image reflects all the greater through us.

When you are head over heels in love, you don’t notice your beloved’s flaws.

You just know you want to be near each other, always. Seeing the One you love. Not looking anywhere else for the love you know is reflected back in His gaze.

Our Beloved has no flaws, and through the blood of Jesus, no longer do you!

Today, strip everything away that you have been letting keep you from fully embracing the Lover of Your soul. Let Him be the mirror reflecting who you really are to you, always.

Come, Beloved, Come…

lining up where I shouldn’t

April 10, 2015April 10, 2015 Karla Lees

Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself only to the person you were yesterday. @toddclark

The comparison trap will cause me to believe what I see, and forget what I know. Beth Kinder www.strongholdthebook.com

I have a problem with my mirror. Maybe you can relate.

My mirror doesn’t show just my reflection, but lines me up beside others I compare myself to, every time i approach it.

In fact, I can’t remember a time besides my wedding day, that i looked in the mirror and just saw me.

Until yesterday.

I decided after having some fun with matching my red undertones for an all over foxy red these past eight months to head back to my roots. Which are a dirty blonde with i suspect a few streaks of grey. I am trying to simplify my life, and fussing with hair dye every time my roots show is too high maintenance for me (but that is me, if you can do it, bless you!)

After my daughter helped get all the dye on, i realized that as I was looking in the mirror, I was wondering what people would think if the grey starts coming in as I let my hair go natural.

Then i thought of a few women i know who always have perfect coiffed hair, as my nana would say. Without a hair out of place.

And as my mind began to wander down that path, this time i caught myself, as i reminded myself of a quote that came to mind:

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I don’t need to worry or compare myself to others, because let’s face it, everybody is struggling with something. Just because it can’t be seen on the outside, doesn’t mean it isn’t there on the inside.

I am tired of judging myself by people’s standards, and lining their opinions up beside me in the mirror.

I choose His standard for me, which is Jesus.

I choose His design for me, which is unique.

I matter to Him, because of His timely & costly investment in me.

I don’t have to compare myself to anyone, but rather I choose listen to His heart for me, which is to live free & close to Him. I choose to change the things He is most concerned about uprooting from me, and embrace the newness He has waiting for me.

Quite frankly, my hair color, or my extra weight, or my freckles, or my naked nails are between God & me.

Stop allowing the enemy to invite other people into the conversation God wants to have with you alone.

It was quite a jolt to my mind to realize where my thoughts naturally start to wander.

And they wandered back to a particularly hurtful grade 7 classmate, who embarrassed me in front of the whole class through her writing about me. Which I believed has been fully dealt with, not!

God reminded me today that the reason there was still an entry point for the enemy was due to my harboring unforgiveness, and shared with me that the person wasn’t trying to be deliberately cruel as it came across, but was very insecure & jealous and was trying to knock me out of competition for our mutual friend’s affection.

By my not forgiving her as a person, but just the action, I allowed a piece of the root to remain, and the enemy has been nurturing it to grow down deep over the years.

I am so done with that!

So i pray,

“God, I fully and completely forgive S___________. I believe Your blood is more than enough to forgive all my sins, and I extend the same mercy to her that You extended to me. Full & utter forgiveness in Jesus’ mighty name. Wherever she is, I ask You to release Your Spirit to whisper the truths You long for her to hear into her mind, heart & spirit. I ask You to restore to me the joy I had in being myself, in embracing who You designed & called me to be. Uproot the enemy plant You have just destroyed, and release a fresh sense of Your wholeness and peace where it used to live. May I ever delight in hearing Your words spoken over me. May I ever trust in You as the Lover of my Soul. May i never lose the wonder of knowing how much YOU delight in ME. May I continually bring the things which are breaking me down & place them into Your hands for You to build me up. Where the enemy played for harm, restore Your goodness & purpose in my life. Blessed be the Lord! I pray this as one of Your beloved, Abba. In Jesus’ name, and Holy Spirit power. Amen.”

Instead of letting ourselves see just our outer beauty, let’s join God in seeing His hand & move in our lives. As children of the King, as the beloved bride of God, let’s allow the Lion of Judah to arise within, and move forward in the confidence of who we really are.

No matter what we look like its who we are inside that truly counts.

His handiwork.

His child.

His delight,

His beloved.

His!

there can only be One

April 7, 2015April 7, 2015 Karla Lees

There can only be One.

We may think that there are more, we may even deceive ourselves that we are it.

But what the world screams the loudest is usually fueled by the enemy, the one who tries to counterfeit the Original, isn’t it?

At the center of humanity’s inability to get along is the lie that we know best. That we are capable of knowing what is best for other people, how they should live, whether they should have a certain job or not, whether they should be a part of the in group or left to the outskirts.

In these ways, and so many more, we judge one another.

But not only do we judge one another on what we think is best for each other, we judge them on what they have done wrong, as if we have never failed or sinned ourselves.

Humanity was never designed to be its own judge.

That role belongs to the Only One who is capable of administering it.

The Only One who has not fallen or sinned or made an error of any kind.

The Only One who was, and is, and ever will be the best for that position.

The Only One who is perfectly suited to judge, because He is perfect.

And He created the system of right and wrong, simply through being Himself.

Not only is He perfect, He is loving, kind, merciful…and eternal.

He is beyond time, this Judge, and so is not swayed by the urgency we have to resolved things in the here and right now.

He is also patient, and with the best purpose behind being so…

God does not want any to perish, and as such, has postponed His judgment until Jesus returns, because Jesus paid the price which allows God to pass over us until that time to come arrives.

When we try to judge one another, we hurt Him.

When we refuse to forgive, and lay down our offenses, we hurt ourselves, the Ones He loves, and muddle up our relationships with those He loves.

And when we judge, withhold forgiveness and hurt those around us?

We join Pilate on the Judgment seat.

We were never meant to judge one another. God allowed the Israelites to have kings, and governments, full well knowing that it would entangle humanity into the judgment debate…where before it had only been God’s way, with God as judge. He knew the enemy wanted this, to turn us against one another.

But God wasn’t surprised, not unprepared for the cost to come to restore proper balance.

Here’s the clincher.

There is Only One judge.

God.

I am not talking about someone judging your work to be substandard because you didn’t put in your best effort kind of judgment here.

I am talking judging over those He created, judging their hearts, their decisions and motives.

Just as Jet Li had to battle his evil duplicate in the classic sci-fi movie “The One”, we have to wrestle down the enemy duplicate of who we are meant to be.

God made each of us uniquely,. and we reflect Him in our only One-ness.

It is time to kick the fake you image the enemy is prompting your flesh to put on back to the pit where it was made for.

In order to be His hands to the world, our focus is to leave His fingerprints behind, no one else’s.

That means when you are tempted to judge someone over their situation, you ask God how to pray and love up on them instead.

This means we take a good hard long look in the mirrored windows of our own homes before throwing stones at the glass houses of others.

It means we deal with our hearts, decisions and motives on our knees before the Only One qualified to judge us, versus placing blame and deflecting through our judgment.

I soooo get this isn’t a nice soft word today…the mirror in front of me is screaming for me to get clean again.

I am so thankful I can ask Jesus to clean me and make me anew every evening, and every morning, because of what He did for us all on the cross, because He alone has the power to resurrect the dead & restore the broken, and Only he was ever meant to judge us.

I am so thankful His grip will not let go of me, until less of me and more of He is what the world will see.