The Rear View Mirror

I'm driving to church with my 8 year old daughter in the passenger seat.  She's looking out the window at the crushed side mirror that dangles by a strap of duct tape from the hole that once held it in place. "Hey Mom.  Are you gonna get that fixed?"

I intend to.  It's not a big priority, to be honest. The mirror was fine until one morning when I was cranky and hurried and fuming about something and came flying out of the garage too close to the side of the garage and stopped just in time to crack the mirror glass, but not dent the door.  Having the glass hanging their limp and lifeless is a great reminder to me that if I don't slow down enough to pay attention, LOTS of the things in my life will end up broken.  The precious things.

Out of the blue and for no particular reason, I said "Can you imagine if we had to drive everywhere using only the mirrors?"  Hmmm.  Why did I say that?  It got me thinking.

I think I've been trying to drive my life using only the mirrors for a while now.  I don't  look out the big window in front of me much.  Instead, I look at the rear view mirror to see where I was and how far I've come.  I look at the familiar, and how odd it looks as the perspective changes as I fly down the street away from the things I'm leaving behind.

Then, of course, I get fixated by the objects in the mirror that "are closer than they appear". Closer than they appear?  Are you kidding?  Certain objects loom large in my rear view mirrors! My cardiac arrest is right there.  My recovery is right there.  My fears and my worries are all right there.  Closer than they appear! But those are the things behind me.  My heart is getting healthy.  I still have heart disease, and always will, but my heart event is past.  My divorce is long past, and happily far from view.  Lots of good happy roads have been traveled since then.

 If I'm not careful, I get stuck looking behind, and forget to look at where I am right now.

NOT the view out my back window.

I'm still heading to church.  I'm looking right out the front window, with the sun shining off the little bit of snow still melting on my windshield. With my eight year old daughter wondering about my broken mirror.  I'd rather look at her sweet face than anything I would see behind me, anyways.  Maybe it's Love that's closer than it appears.