Mirror Mirror on the Wall

There's a scene in The Neverending Story where Atreyu is having the 3 gates that he must pass through in order to get to the Southern Oracle. Gate 2 is a mirror. Falcor (eternal optimist Luck Dragon) is very Eh about it which prompts Engywook (the gnomish expert on the Southern Oracle) to become irritated and say to him the lines that keep looping through my head:

Engywook: Next is the Magic Mirror Gate. Atreyu has to face his true self.
Falcor: So what? That won't be too hard for him.
Engywook: Oh, that's what everyone thinks! But kind people find out that they are cruel. Brave men discover that they are really cowards! Confronted by their true selves, most men run away screaming!
I think marriage is life this mirror. There are things you thought for certain you just KNEW about yourself. Then suddenly you find yourself face to face with reactions you did not foresee being apart of your heart.

I think this may be doubly true for B and me since we're middle-aged when we are starting out. He's never been married and has 35 years of his own way under his belt. I have been a single parent for TEN YEARS!!! i.e. I raise my kids and keep my house MY way ....

B has always maintained that marriage is a mirror. Which is probably why these lines keep cropping up in my reveries. Mirrors show you that is not what you think. How often do we justify our actions? All the time. We constantly shift blame to say if so and so hadn't done this or that I wouldn't have had to say such and such. Justifying our own selfish behavior, but when we stare into a mirror and see that there is really self-serving ugliness behind it we can't hide....or at least it's not as easy. Marriage is perpetually dying to your own desires to serve another...another that is really our self as God joined us into One.

Right now, I feel like the people Engywook describes. I'm not as kind as I thought I was. I'm not gracious as I pretend to be. And I'm even harder on those I love than I realized.

My marriage is a mirror. One that shows me the hard things as well as the lovely ones so as not to leave me stuck in the mire of my fleshliness.  

Mirror, Mirror on the wall...Thank you for loving me through it all.