He had a skinny mom
By Ashley Mercier

The first time I saw a picture of my now mother-in-law, I thought, Oh no, she’s skinny.

In my experience, guys with skinny moms don’t like … girls like me. 

Thankfully, my now-husband proved my theory wrong. But his acceptance of me did little to erase decades of self-image issues.

My self-deprecation became a filter for our interactions, especially in the early years. 

A new outfit? No-win situation. If he complimented me, I didn’t believe him. If he said nothing, I considered it proof I was undesirable. 

I consistently overshadowed his actual opinions of me with my own opinions of myself. And in so doing, I showed my husband that his feelings for me didn’t matter.

In marriage, self-preservation defeats connection. 

Our unity, our “two become one,” gives my husband license to speak into my soul and redefine who I am. Self-preservation causes me to reject those gentle whispers of love, in turn rejecting him and causing isolation.

The Bible kicks off chapter 1 with Adam isolated, and God coming to the rescue with a beautiful remedy to Adam’s feelings of loneliness, Eve. The three—God, Adam, and Eve—are a completed triad, a relational masterpiece.

In fact, in that same chapter, God gives us the first mirror: “So God created man in His own image” (Genesis 1:27). 

I see a lot of things in my bathroom mirror—cinched-tight jeans causing unsightly bulges, under-eye luggage courtesy of late nights. That mirror is the wrong mirror. 

Genesis has it right. The mirror of God says I am created to look like Him, to reveal His glory, and my marriage is a reflection of His strength, not our weaknesses.

And that's the reflection I want to see more of in the mirror.