The Cracks Just Let the Light Come In
Have you ever gone to physically try on clothes at Lululemon? It will make you want to break the mirror. I mean physically rear back your slightly-flabby, used-to-be-toned arm and punch it. Why on earth, I’ve wondered for years, would a place selling workout gear intentionally deck their fitting rooms with mirrors that make you feel like you’re in a cheap, carnival house of mirrors, leaving you feeling larger and less fit than you actual are? Shouldn’t their guise be to choose delicate lighting and slimming mirrors that make you think you are, in fact, not out of shape but an Olympian in well-deserved need of piles of new athletic gear?
Until one day it came to me. I was interviewing a singer songwriter whose latest album was all but the open grieving of her divorce post her husband’s infidelity. In her title track, “I’m Not Broken,” the last line of the chorus reads like this:
“The cracks just let the light come in, I'm not broken.”
Then it hit me. This is Lulu’s strategy. This right here is their evil plan to expose and exaggerate our flaws in their dressing rooms in order to boost their bottom line. Gosh, if I look this bad, I better hit the gym. What we see is not a generous affirmation that we’re Olympians, but cracks in the false fitness façade that we so desperately wish were true. I really do have cellulite and my abs really are MIA, so I need more of this gear to get to work. None of us want to look in the fat mirror or acknowledge the painful cracks in who we are, but it’s only in exposing the flaws that we are sincerely motivated to pursue fitness and health.
And the more I’ve thought about it, the more convinced I’ve become that Jesus loves those dang fat mirrors too. He is willing to let us shutter at our flaws and shortcomings and sins because only when the mirror of our false self-worship, self-reliance, and self-righteousness is cracked can his beautiful, redeeming light come in. Lulu fitting rooms work to encourage our fitness in the same way the God’s law works to reinforce our desperate need for his grace. They show us where we’re broken and push us toward what (or Who) can actually make us whole.
“We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans tells us. And we must be reminded of this, or we mitigate the majesty of the One who saved us and chose us in spite of our cracks.
The commandments and laws and impossible standards God calls us to aren’t a ladder to climb, but a Lulu mirror intended to remind us: spiritual fitness is impossible without clinging to the redeeming work of Christ. The biggest threat to our spiritual growth and desire to live in obedience to God’s standards is an un-cracked mirror. When we stand in our own spiritual fitting room and pretend what we see is good enough, we don’t allow any cracks for Jesus’s grace to flood in. But when we face and embrace our spiritual cellulite, our most shameful and regretted shortcomings, the mirror cracks and we are covered in the abundant love, righteousness, and strength of our perfect Savior.
It’s not easy to stand in front of the fat mirror. It’s not easy to look your cracks dead in the face and say, “I don’t like you. But I love the One who has made me perfect and beautiful in spite of your ugliness.” As impossibly hard as it is, I hope we can learn not to overlook our shortcomings and to stop futilely trying to hide our flaws. Let your mirror shatter because the cracks, dear friend, are where the light and love of Christ come floodin