Christmas day was always so much fun at my grandparent’s house. We would get together with all the holiday goodies and, of course, presents.

I was thrilled one year when I was handed a beautifully wrapped gift from my aunt and unwrapped it to find a fancy Wonder Woman hand mirror. It was like a Wonder Woman figurine with her legs forming the handle and her lasso creating a circle behind her that held the mirror on the back side. It was the 70’s and I bet many of you had one too.

I loved my mirror, except I couldn’t really see myself clearly. The mirror had a defect causing the reflection to be blurry and when I tried to look at myself I couldn’t see my face clearly. I could never really tell if my hair was sticking up in weird places or if I still had broccoli stuck in my teeth from last night’s dinner.

The only way I could use the mirror well was to tip it and tilt it and twist my eyes around to look out toward the side. It wasn’t easy! I loved my Wonder Woman mirror, but it wasn’t useful to help me to see myself clearly. I could only see myself in part and with a measure of difficulty.

Sometimes what you see of yourself is only a small piece of who you are and you don’t really understand who God created you to be. That’s ok! Self-awareness is a journey that we are on the entirety of our lives.

It can take some time to discover all the ways God has uniquely made you who you are. In fact, our awareness of ourselves is intricately bound to our ongoing discovery of who God is and his attributes. Knowing him deeper exposes his expression of himself in and through you.

As you learn who Jesus is in you, and the gifts and strengths you have, you are able to find ways to love the people around you and serve them in ways that are unique to you. How you live and interact with your friends and family members is a reflection of who you are, not what you look like.

1 Corinthians 13:12 reminds us that we only see a part of all of that now but one day we will understand it all very clearly. Things might seem a little blurry to you now, like looking in that Wonder Woman mirror, but as you press in to God and fix your eyes on him and seek to know his heart he will allow you to see yourself with more clarity.

The closer you look at Him, the more you will look like him. That, my friends, is becoming the very best version of yourself.