When this Green Monster looked into the lake, she saw herself as a big and ugly deformed creature and feared that all who would look at her in real life would walk away disgusted.
The mountains were wonderfully captured in the water’s reflection.
Many times she would sit all day in front of the lake and absorb the beautiful surroundings.
She secretly wished that it would transform her into something pretty.
Something never seemed to fit right with the landscape surrounding her though.
She had finally come to realize that it was her who distorted the whole picture.
Yes, picture perfect would that setting be if it weren’t for that big and ugly green monster. She could just imagine what people were thinking when they came to admire the view and capitalize on a photo op.
Dejected and lonely, she refused to be comforted from any helping hand if one ever did come. Absorbing the beauty of her surroundings but not allowing that beauty to cascade and overflow into her own heart, she lived in tension.
Beauty and Disgrace.
Captivation and Repulsion.
There were occasional moments that went by when she actually forgot who she was and she began to allow the beauty of the sun be absorbed into her skin.
Dreaming of running and playing in a new body, she abruptly awoke to the sounds of voices nearby.
“This picture would be so beautiful if it weren’t for that ‘thing’ over there. Move it will you.”
Putting her head down, she silently retreated near the bushes and out of the way. People are all the same, they just never even care. Why don’t they just let me be, she thought.
She was sick and tired of the constant comments and readjusting her life to suit others perfect picture.
She was different and so what.
Why was she going to let these other idiots ruin her prime spot, ruin the beautiful day.
She had finally had enough!
Her biggest fear was Reflection Lake, it showed her who she really was and even she at times was repulsed by the image. She was going to dive into the bottom of the reflection to see what was really there.
She might drown but she just couldn’t go on living like this anymore, like some ugly animal that people hurry to pass at a zoo. An ugly and rejected duckling. Difference doesn’t mean disgusting she thought.
So on the count of three.
“A one,” she swung her arm up,
“a two,”
“come on Miss Greeny, I know you can do this,” she whispered to herself.
Taking a deep breath before “three,” there went a Green flash and then a splash and then a wrinkle in time, a broken record player, a circular explosion of ripples flowering the lake.
Miss Greeny had disappeared.
Something sparkled in those fearful depths. She kept swimming to the bottom to see what this mystery was all about.
There, wedged in between some rocks of the lake was a mirror.
When she looked into it she saw images of all those real monsters, those people that made fun of her when she was growing up, those evil tourists in her life who just wanted to move her out of “their” way so that nothing and nobody would impose on "their" picture perfect lives. She saw images of all those who had hurt her.
She was faced with a choice down there in the deep. She wanted to cry but by being immersed in water there was no real way to shed one tear.
She wanted to smash that mirror.
Instead she realized that what was in the mirror was really herself.
She had hung onto all those people who had damaged and hurt her in the past in one way or another. She let those people who ridiculed her make her who she was that day.
The reflection didn’t lie. If she smashed that mirror in anger, she would be smashing her own heart.
Instead, by doing something that took an amazing amount of courage, she attempted to embrace the past. She pulled the mirror close to her heart. She embraced this collage of her enemies until a bright light reflected
through the mirror,
through her heart,
through the water,
and back into the sky.
The water began to ripple again, this time backwards though as if one was watching someone doing a “cannon ball” into the water but in reverse. As she was literally sucked back up to the surface, clinging and hugging that enemy filled mirror with all her might, close to her heart, she chose to let go of them only to embrace them once again and extend forgiveness from her heart.
As she emerged from the water and walked on the land, still clinging to that mirror of loved ones who had hurt her and strangers who had ridiculed her, she noticed that the water dripping from her was colored green. She started to see olive color being exposed on her skin as the green began to drip away.
She walked over to the now calm waters. When she looked in the waters, she was frightened.
What she saw made her take a step back. She couldn’t have been more scared in her life of what she saw. It couldn’t be, she thought. Stepping forward once again, she approached the forgiving waters.
What she saw was a beautiful and lovely young woman whom she felt that she once knew many years ago. She couldn’t believe it.
That girl still existed, she was still alive!
Seemed so alien to her, it had been so long since she had last seen her. She couldn’t believe it, she had returned.
Still holding tight to the mirror, she pulled it back from her heart and looked deeply into its mysteries.
The Green Monster had disappeared.
Her lovely green eyes reflected back to her a truly free and beautiful self she had not known for so many years.
It couldn’t have been a more radiant day, a transformation had occurred. It baffled her silly; she could do nothing but giggle at the mystery of the new scene before her eyes and smile in amazement.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
-Lewis B. Smedes
-Lewis B. Smedes
© 2009 by Jennifer Miskov, pictures courtesy of Bea and Evie Harding, layout Ella Harding.
Made in Birmingham, England
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