This season of treasure hunting requires one important tool—a
mirror: This is solely for the responsibility of self-refl ection. You
have better insight into yourself than anyone else could ever have.
You know the roads you have traveled and are still traveling. You
know your sharp curves, paths, and yielding moments. You know
your life more intimately than any human being walking this earth
will ever know it. A psychic can’t help you, a lottery ticket won’t
teach you, or a crystal ball will not conjure up a better future. As
you search through the boxes of your life for your purpose, hold
the mirror in front of you and ask yourself this question repeatedly:
“What does this item have to do with my purpose?”
Holding the mirror in your hand, you see a box that holds a lot
of memories. Your mind starts to play tricks on you, but you know
you’re living in the “now” moment, although it takes you down a
memory lane. Your facial expression is saddened as you pick up a
photo album. Before your eyes are sketches of family and friends,
an ex-boyfriend, or an ex-husband who broke your heart. You fall
to the cold, concrete fl oor and burst into tears. You angrily pound
your fi sts into the sides of the boxes. The pain is excruciating.
Who can you blame at this moment? Where do you point the
fi nger? You hear pride scream through the torrents of agony, “But
it wasn’t my fault!” You try your best to justify your case in the
courtroom of your mind and heart.
Then you remember that you have a religion, so you redirect
your anger towards a supposed-to-be-all-knowing God. Your gut
reaction is to inform Him that He is responsible for your pain right
now. You feel perfectly justifi ed to point the fi nger at God because,
after all, there is no one bigger than He.
You pick up another frame. There are the old friends you hung
out with, laughed with, and told your innermost secrets. You shared
your wealth with them, fed them when they were hungry, clothed
them when they were naked, lent to them and told them they didn’t
have to pay you back until they could. You charged up credit to
make a circle of friends of debt emotions
What is the mirror telling you? You realize you’ve used it as a
rearview mirror, only seeing what has come up behind you. But
ironically, do you also realize that you were unable to use this mirror
to watch your back? All the hurt, heartache, and pain happened
anyway. You didn’t realize those pictures needed to cascade out of
that box to reveal those painful memories. You had to fi nd where
you went wrong, how you missed it, and what there was to learn
from it.
Who are you mad at right now? Are you still angry at God for
the family division or the bad company of people you kept around?
Have you begun to see that the problem isn’t anyone’s issue but
your own? If you live alone and your sink becomes clogged, do
you blame the house, or do you understand that clogged sinks are
simply a maintenance issue? Life happens. The only one responsible
for how you respond is you.
Mirror by Lisa Fikes
Excerpt from book “Journey To Purpose”
