Kodak Moments

Somebody showed me a real nice photo taken during a recent work-related dinner event. Everyone at the table looked pleasant, relaxed and normal- except for the ugly duckling at the bottom of the shot. Who the hell is that? Oh. It was me.

Pretty as a picture? Hardly.

But I don't get it. Every morning as I shave and brush my teeth- not generally at the same time- I look in the mirror and swear the guy looking back at me isn't all that horrible. I wouldn't call myself strikingly handsome, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm not walking though the world wearing a grotesque Halloween mask either. The lovely Amy even says I'm cute.

I don't know about that, but it beats being compared to the Elephant Man any day.

Yet whether posing, or unaware a camera is even pointed at me, why do I always come out looking like a mistake whose mold, after seeing the finished product, the Almighty would be happy to break? Don't want to inflict another one of those on humanity. I know we're all made in God's image, but I find it hard to believe my ugly mug is anything the Creator is rushing to grab any credit for.

I swear, in every picture ever taken of me I see a face looking back that only a mother could love; and even that's open for debate.  Am I really that hideous? Who knows? But even my baby pictures suck. They're so bad, that old joke- when you came out, the doctor slapped your mother-might actually really apply.

It's hard to explain and I don't quite understand, but every picture of me is dreadful. 

I want to blame the lighting or shadows, or the rube snapping the picture. But like they say, the camera doesn't lie. If that's true though, then honesty sucks. Even professionals can't help; my appearance in formal portraits leaves much to be desired as well. And all the touching up in the world wouldn’t make a lick of difference.

It makes me so sad, because subtly or not, everybody's judged on appearance, one way or another. So I shudder to imagine what people must think when they see me. Do mothers hide their children when I walk on their side of the street? Do members of the opposite sex look at me and feel sorry for the poor woman who married me?  Do even less not-so-good looking guys see me and talk themselves into believing they aren’t so bad after all?

Why do those things cross my mind at all? I wish I had an answer but I don't. It's just more of the moronic junk that still trickles through my pee-brain from time to time. Yet I believed this junk for a lot of years. And it's been a colossal chore to finally begin the process of chucking this crap into life's landfill and call it what it is- a lie. God does not judge me by how I look. Nor does He care.

And neither should I.

If I’m judged at all, it should only by what's on the inside. And though that's not always a thing of beauty either, I'm working on it. But someday, the torture I’ve put myself through in life over such trivial matters will at last be over. I will be made whole and perfect and if I was ever worried about the outward appearance, I won't be anymore. For at that point, God will smile at the newly finished product and say, "Well done". And the next snapshot will reveal a very pretty picture of a very pretty soul that’ll last for all eternity.

But in the meantime, I beg you: get that stupid camera outta my face!