I have pondered this month’s topic of “true colors” for months, and probably years now.  So facing a publication deadline yesterday, I brought it up with my former therapist turned friend, Inger.  Inger happens to be an American of African descent whose parents were sharecroppers during the Jim Crow era.  Inger was well-loved, chose to go to a predominantly white college straight out of high school, was well-equipped for life, and then married her high school sweetheart. She is now one of the elders and spiritual leaders in our church and community.

I, on the other hand, had a baby by the time I was 19, then married Mr. Wrong and got stuck there for 18 years.  My life was one of neglect and abuse for the first 40 years. I finally began to break free and start college as a single mom at the age of 38. While Inger’s life was one of oppression by the dominant culture, she also was nurtured by vast family and community support and grew up in a home environment with parents who loved and gave everything they had to see her, and her eight siblings succeed. Thus, although we are about the same age, we have very different experiences and insights in life, and love to have these deep conversations.

I posed the question out loud, “Are people’s poor choices and character the result of our ‘true colors’ or were they the result of trauma and environment? . . . . Or is it that the sin that happened TO us first caused us to compound our own pain with our own sins and we became and behaved differently than we were created to be?”

“I think as we heal and become emotionally and spiritually mature in the Lord our colors become brighter,” Inger suggested.  Immediately the scripture came to my mind, “We see through a glass darkly, now we see in part and we know in part, but then face to face…” (1 Corinthians 13:12). I clearly saw one after another a tarnished silver tray, a dulled brass chandelier, and an antique mirror losing its silver it in my mind’s eye. I piped in, “We see ourselves and others with a tarnished view, not an accurate, clear, clean reflection, but one tarnished by our own sin and pain as well as the other person’s. There are at least two people in every interaction with layers upon layers of tarnishing injuries that have disfigured each person and our perceptions of each other.”

We cannot see each other or ourselves clearly because of the sin that has harmed us and our own sins we have compounded the harm with.

Inger jumped in again, “We all are designed to shine, to be brilliant, glowing, and beautiful. Our true colors are beautiful from the beginning.”  Our conversation ping-ponged back and forth for a while, and this is what we concluded:

We are created to be distinct and unique beings to accomplish some purpose of the Creator according to the Imago Dei (His own DNA) placed in us.  However, the sin(s) of this life dull our “true colors” as if looking through a tarnished mirror or a dirty windshield.  Who we really are, is fixed in our original design by Creator God.  However, whether those true colors of ourselves and others can be perceived depends on our own healing, Christian maturity, and willingness to remove all those layers of tarnish and distortion that have been created by the crisis of this present life.

Our “true colors” never really change.  We were created to be a particular person with a particular mission and a particular beauty.  It is only our PERCEPTION and DEMONSTRATION of those colors that change.  We frequently misperceive ourselves, and even more often misperceive the beauty in others who have experiences that are diverse from our own. We often find their “tarnish” judgable, while our own is given grace.

Cyndi Lauper’s voice loops endlessly in my head lately with the words of the song, True Colors, “So don’t be afraid to let them show, just let your true colors shine through!”

God has created you and even conditioned you through your unique circumstances to be all that you need to be on this planet.  You may (as I do) often question and hate those circumstances.  However, God has refined pure gold in you.  That pure gold is exactly what you may wish to protect and hide from the harsh world around you.  But Inger and I think that God has designed you to let that God-formed gold reflect not only your own true colors, but to bring out the shine in others, and especially to reflect the character of our Creator, which is perfectly, BEAUTIFUL!

‘So Don’t be afraid to let them show, I see your true colors, shiiii-ning…… through!”