Reflections
photo and writing by Lillian Cucuzza The female Eastern Bluebird incessantly attacked its own reflection in the neighbor’s car window and mirror. My neighbor thought the bird was obsessed with itself. The truth is this female was aggressively protecting her territory from what she thought was another female bluebird. Processing the photos of this bluebird gave me time to reflect on the metaphor it represented to me. This bird thought it was attacking the reflection, but she was really attacking herself. The depth of that thought was so profound it took my breath away. Some of us get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and allow negative thoughts and self-talk to start creeping into our minds. We begin our day attacking ourselves. Maybe we don’t like the way we look, whether it’s our face, skin, hair, hair color, weight, or the shape we are in or not in mentally, spiritually and/or physically. Or perhaps we are thinking about what the day will bring. We begin to berate ourselves with doubts and fears, feeling inferior because of our diminished self-esteem and self-image that results from these attacks. There may be guilty feelings from something in the past that we have never forgiven ourselves for, or for broken relationships that we are trying to repair. Maybe we even question our eternal security. I’ve been guilty of entertaining many of these harmful thoughts in my life. Whatever it is, we sabotage ourselves with these constant destructive attacks that come directly from the enemy. Please understand that those thoughts are lies and do not come from God, but from the very pit of hell itself. The writer in 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for 23
