Hephzibah

The mirror lied, every time I looked into it. All it did was show me inadequacies, inabilities...faults. It crippled me.

You see I accepted those images as truth; reality I didn't like but was so nonetheless. I struggled every time I looked at it because the images it reflected fell very short of "beautiful." 

Beautiful. That meant my hair had to be a certain way; that my skin had to glow with every ray of sunshine that fell; that my mouth had to be perfectly positioned in pictures.

But my features betrayed me. They always fell short - very short. I tried to make myself beautiful, tried to do all I could to measure up physically. It worked and each time I would give myself a pat on the back for a job well done. 

But soon the success of my efforts would wear out and I would be back again, in front of the mirror, looking and thinking, "I'm so not perfect."

It was a draining process, having to convince myself that I was beautiful. It really was. 

The strange thing was I was Christian. I was saved and knew what the Word of God said - that it called me Beautiful and blessed. It called me Hephzibah*, God's Delight and Beulah, Married. I was Hephzibah and I was Beulah - God's Delight, married to Him. Yet, it seemed, this wasn't enough. Every time I would look in the mirror, I would see scars - emotional and physical.

At times, I felt very different from what God had called me; like I was NOT Hephzibah. Not His Delight.

But I fought the feeling. I was his delight, I told myself; I was his Chosen.

But the images from the mirror started at me, weighing me down. I fought them but it often seemed I didn't win.

*"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith..." 

Weights. For me, the mirror was one. It bore down on me, telling me all sorts of lies and most of all, keeping me from fully knowing the love of my Father, my Savior, my Jesus. 

But nothing can separate me from His Love...

Hephzibah. That's what He's chosen to call me. So I lay down past images, knowing that he has called me out to be His Delight.

I am his Delight. 

I am Hephzibah.

Lay down your weights.

Signed,

Hephzibah ♥

*Hebrews 12: 1& 2

*Beulah & Hephzibah are taken from Isaiah 62:4.