dailydatewithgod

The face we show to the world apparently indicates our value according to some people.  I remember as a kid with acne how awful I thought my face looked.  It was horrible and I was so embarrassed.  I never wanted to show my face and I was horrified if I had a pimple that was about ready to pop but didn’t.  The absurdity of life is that I felt so gross and disgusting on the inside it was as though my complexion was telling everyone around me.  In a world that values images more than content of character, it is easy to understand why so many kids at an age when they are figuring out how they want to show up in the world walk around feeling like their complexion is their destiny.  For some people it is.  It is clear that as human beings our minds do a lot with the images we see.  We learn so much and take in all kinds of information from our eyes.  Yet the meaning we attach to those images is all our own.  God invites us as we witness the physical complexion of ourselves and others to look beneath the surface to the complexion of our minds and hearts.  Below the complexions we see is meaning we attach to the image in our minds and the energy from our hearts that we direct towards the meaning.  When we pause to notice the complexion of our minds and hearts we see where we can adjust the complexion we see with our eyes.  As a young girl, I did not know that the complexion of my mind was focused on telling me that to be included and liked (which to me meant safe and belonging) I had to have clear and beautiful skin.  And I did not know that the complexion of my heart could not speak loud enough to be heard past my self-hatred.  I was too busy trying to keep up with the fact that everybody else was buying into the same idea about our complexions.  God invites us to take a breath whenever we evaluate the surface complexion of a face, an idea, a belief, or anything and notice what the complexion of our mind and heart are saying to us.