faith faces

I saw myself in the mirror yesterday and didn’t know the face looking back at me. As a teenager, I spent hours mapping my face and certain truths settled in my mind about my outward appearance. My nose had a funny wide spot on the bridge that looked like I broke it. If freckles are indeed angel kisses, somebody up there really loved me a lot. My eyes were too small and my face was too round. My hair was too straight and didn’t flip on the ends. On the plus side, my hair was a pretty color and I didn’t get zits. It is time to update my image memory.
Now my face is no longer the smooth, unbroken, polished face of youth with life stretching out in front of my too small eyes. It is a face that bears the marks of a life filled with love, laughter, grief, disappointments, celebration, hope, joy, despair and depression. Tear tracks and laugh lines have carved a face that is a map showing the roads I have traveled. My eyes are settling down, just like my grandma and my mother. My funny nose is taking on the shape of my father’s nose and my pretty dark hair stays that way thanks to good dye jobs. When I finally turn all over grey, the dye will go but I cannot abide the four natural and different colors... dark brown, yellow brown, grey and red ... that have shown up to replace my ash brown/black hair. A new creation is at work in my soul and mirrored in my face.
I am grateful for all the love that has been given to me in this life. My parents, grandparents, sister, sisters and brothers of choice, friends, husbands and children have loved me for no rational reason... just because. God loved me first and loves me still, imperfect and perfect child that I am. Love created many of the lines and softened the edges of my face.
I am grateful for all the laughter in my life. The sense of the absurd that keeps me snickering under my breath and laughing out loud at myself and others... the jokes told (not sent via e-mail) by Mabel Calder (at church and always risque’), Hardy Clemmons ( slowly and with a Texas accent), Thad Timmon’s perfectly awful puns, Nina Pollard and Judy who always had at least one good one to tell every Sunday at Crescent Hill Baptist Church, Grady Nutt whose sly, raucous humor helped keep a generation of Southern Baptists laughing at themselves... the merry hearts of children whom I have loved and been loved by... animals who tickle my funnybone... all these have made laugh lines at the corners of my mouth and eyes.
I am grateful for all the grief in my life. Death of a husband before I was twenty one taught me to value life. My sister’s suicide and the grief of that sharp death taught me the value of family. My friends Judy and Kerry taught me how to face a slowly approaching death unseasonably young and still live. My daddy’s death and dying set us both free as we held each other that long last week of his life. The lines in my face reflect the grace of life lived with a certain end coming.
I am grateful for the depression that has been a cello accompaniment to my piano playing life. It has kept me grounded, taught me how to weep with others and not be ashamed, how to keep on keeping on, kept me humble (now there’s a word you don’t hear much anymore) by forcing me to rely on God and Prozac instead of my own self. The sad shadows in my eyes balance the sharp edge of my tongue and help me see my own limits more clearly.
My faith face lines are invisible and cannot be seen in any mirror but they are there nonetheless. I have gratitude lines around the mouth, lines around eyes that have strained to see the Unseen, forehead lines from amazement and hope and joy, a soft edged chin that can snuggle up next to you, and skin that is still covered with angel kisses.
I look at the pictures of myself when I was young and see how beautiful I was and did not know it. Now I see my wrinkled, funny face and I know it is beautiful, full of a life lived with love, joy, faith and hope. Thanks be to God for faces. I wonder how God’s face has changed through the years? I hope there are laugh lines and love lines from me.