Reflections of my Heart (Part I )

Contentment

February 23,2015

I was riding a public transportation and since it has a mirror in front of me, I spotted my face full of blemishes and pimples marring my so-called beauty. I suddenly felt so ugly, insecure and irritably diverted my eyes and instead found myself staring at the young man across me.

As I looked at him, he ashamedly averted his eyes and consciously hid his right hand under the handkerchief on top of it. But before he could hide it completely, I saw a glimpsed of the two fingers, the pointer and middle ones, look like a stump on his hand.

I felt compassion welled inside my heart and suddenly felt silly with the insecurity that conjured up inside my mind. Here I am complaining about my face when so many out there lack some limbs or have disabilities and they have more confidence than me. I feel ashamed of my narrow-minded countenance and prayed for this young man that in his situation, he will not focus on what he look like but on the goodness of his heart and will be filled with love and acceptance from the people who were closest to him and most especially, find that he is unconditionally loved by God, our Father. I further prayed that he will gain confidence more and more as he battle the journey of life with its accompanied unfairness and prejudices.

As he lifted up his head and our eyes met, I smiled at him with reassurance, telling him in my small way that it's okay, you don't need to hide your disability. You are not condemn but accepted. He smiled back at me with more confidence than before and from that one brief moment, we both silently communicated his confidence and my acceptance.

I haven't known his name nor he knows mine but in that instance, I knew I found a new friend. He taught me the lesson of contentment, of accepting our own weaknesses or lack thereof, of not condemning nor deriding those people with disabilities because we too have our own idiosyncrasies. It may not be physical but definitely, it is deep within us that few people can see.

From that time on, every time I think about him, I always lifted up prayers in Heaven, thanking the Lord for all my brethren with disabilities because they are more braver than me. There disabilities didn't deter them from living the life that God intended for them to do and they do much more than I can. I salute there courage and strength. I am sure it is a gift from God that no able-bodied men can do, they do it supernaturally.

Life is full of disabilities. It is a choice whether we face it headlong and do something about it in our advantage or make it an excuse to do nothing at all and just be contented to sit down in a corner of our made-up world, blaming everyone around us. As for me, I chose the former one.

As I looked once again in the mirror in front of me, I haven't seen the blemishes on my face nor the ugliness that I thought goes with it but instead saw a beautiful woman who chose to be contented and confident because her God is pleased with her. I smiled at myself with reassurance and acceptance and in that brief moment, me and that beautiful woman in the mirror had an understanding of sort that nobody ever knew.

"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

Proverbs 31:30

"But the Lord said to Samuel: 'Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.'"

1 Samuel 16:7