How do you see yourself?

On Sunday I was sustained as gospel doctrine teacher in our ward, and perhaps I’ll share some thoughts about that calling in another post, but for today I want to share some thoughts about how we see ourselves. As I read through the lesson for this week I was struck by the part that suggested we need to see ourselves as we really are. It’s hard to be objective about yourself. Sometimes I wish I could see myself as Heavenly Father sees me, although that thought is a little scary. I’ve recently had the experience of catching a glimpse of myself through the eyes of someone else.

A missionary companion of mine has spent the past forty plus years writing her mission memoirs. That means that for a period of a few months she was also writing about me. She sent me the beginning part of the chapter entitled, “The District Leader and the Homecoming Queen.” Hmmmm! Sounds interesting! Indulge me as I quote a few lines she uses to describe her new companion. “The blonde, who had to be her new companion, addressed her in German. She noticed immediately a confidence the two Americans wore as comfortably as the casual rich wear tweed and leather. . . . Sister T. was admiring the stranger’s lush, platinum curls. She was thinking of old movie stills. They were like Harlowe’s. . . .The tall dark-haired young man, who she knew to be her new district leader, stood by the side of her pretty senior companion, and without saying a word or making a gesture, managed to convey his complete agreement with everything she said and implied. . . .They were as poised and polished as any urban sophisticates.”

Wow! I just saw myself as little “small-town girl” who cleaned houses for other people on Saturdays for a whopping fifty cents an hour, helped her dad move the sheep from pasture to pen, rode a bike (not a “cool” one, either) with a violin threaded onto the handlebars, and wore cut-off jeans and curlers in her hair. So watch out! Forty years from now you may find out that someone else has seen you through very different eyes.