The Perfect Magnifying Glass

The perfect magnifying glass is something that might be helpful if more of us used it.
Or maybe I should say, used it properly.

This magnifying glass finds "perfect" people, things, and situations.
You know, the Soandsos who never struggle with weight, or looking their best, or who never have financial struggles-heck-look at all the nice stuff they have! 
And don't forget how loving and close their family is, and how all their children are happy, healthy, high achievers!
They don't even have anything bad happen to them.  The trials that befall so many of us seem to somehow pass over them.  How does that happen?!  Well, because they are perfect of course!!  Some people just have it made.

Or do they?  Is it really as it appears to us on the "outside"?
Well, let's get our little perfect magnifying glass out and take a closer look.

Do you ever remember looking at things with a magnifying as a child and seeing all the cracks and scratches or dirt or even little moving things that we could not see with our eyes alone?!  

Well, let's see if that applies in any way to our perfect family we fondly envy and resent at the same time:

Weight has always been a struggle and has manifested itself in unhealthy habits-which of course are hidden behind closed doors so we aren't aware.

Although they are beautiful and handsome beings at all times, we don't see what they see when they look in the mirror.  We don't hear the messages that they hear that point out all their imperfections and flaws; we don't see their inner spirits which hate themselves under their stunning outward appearances.  We only see the confident facade.

And oh sure, they have almost every "toy" one could dream of and they live in a house that makes magazine covers but we don't see the looming bankruptcy over their heads.  We don't see that although they hate their jobs and are spread so thin, they are barely hanging on; that they are a prisoner in their own life - to their debt.

And that happy family.  Well, it is riddled with several skeletons in their family closets.  There are secrets some family members know about and others that are kept secret even years later.  These people have no one in which to confide in.  It has worked because it has been a family that learned the social etiquette of keeping it hidden.  Sometimes there is shame or embarrassment at wayward children or a failing marriage.

And the trials we don't see them experience are covered up with addictions of one sort or another.  Their lives are run by the desperate need to numb the pain, that it not catch up to them and overtake them.  That would prove fatal.  And it sometimes does- which shocks everyone when it happens because we didn't even know there was anything wrong.  Sometimes it is serious physical or mental health issues we don't know exists but which causes tremendous amount of heartache and pain both to the heart and body.

So before we compare ourselves to that "perfect family" and yearn to have all that they have, maybe we should take out our magnifying glass and take a better look.

We are not to use it to pass judgement but to realize maybe what we have is perfect after all.

 There are no perfect men in this world, only perfect intentions.  ~Pen Densham, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves