A mirror is a place we use to examine ourselves to see if we’re prepared to go out, to see whether or not we look decent, be sure the hair is laying right or that you don’t still have tomato sauce on your face from that delectable lasagna. It’s also a place where we a lot of things wrong with us, question ourselves, and often times can be a source of negative self-image (or pride on the flip side, if we’re unwilling to see the important flaws).

I’ve never really been 100% confident in the way I look. I’m always asking for advice on different clothing, different hair. It may be that way because I used to be ridiculed for my face, for my slender figure (which isn’t typically a man’s desire, but hey, that’s the way I’m built naturally). It doesn’t help that I’m susceptible to the occasional anxiety attack. I don’t know whether they are a result of the ridicule or if the ridicule I used to face simply exacerbated the anxiety that may have surfaced eventually.

About a week ago, I suffered one of these attacks. This one was triggered by my tendency to base my feelings about my relationship with God on my ability to make good choices and also to abstain from sins that are particularly tempting to me. When I have an anxiety attack, the worst symptom I experience is the racing thoughts. They just don’t stop. They are many. They are negative. They are violent. They are self-deprecating. They are scary. They are also false. Even if there is something wrong with you, they are false and scary because they destroy.

… But why? Why do these thoughts happen? If God is good, why do I have the spirit of fear? Either one of two things must be true: either God is not good, or someone else gave me the spirit of fear. So I remembered something that I should not have let become trapped in a dark, unregulated corner of my mind: the enemy comes to destroy. Jesus comes to give life! So I prayed, “Lord, protect me from demons, protect me from the enemy.”

The racing thoughts dissipated immediately.

I’m nothing special, but sometimes, the enemy tries to put us in a place where we think we’re worthless because we’re sinners. Jesus begs to differ. He died and lives for us. He knows what we need when we need it, so when we as His adopted and highly dysfunctional kids are scared and need Him, He will step in and say, “Child, I love you, and I will keep you safe from the enemy.” I needed to remember that. I needed to be reminded that the One who’s in me is greater than the one that is in the world. At that moment, I needed a miracle, and I wanted Him, my heavenly Father, back.

So since then, I’ve had this thing where I write on mirrors with dry erase marker. I write my sins, insecurities, and my remedy. There’s something powerful about that to me. Maybe the words over my reflection help me to see myself in the context of Christ’s love and truth. By doing what He did a week ago, He gave me a reason to give back into His Spirit and fight the spirit of fear in Jesus’ name, because even though I’d never lost the reasons or lost my faith, I lost my fight and gained some doubts and baggage. But praise God that He is greater than any anxiety and greater than anything I see in the mirror.