I used to think a testimony was what it says it is: to testify about the work of God in my life. That made a testimony a pretty stressful thing. On a weekly basis, I tried to find what God was saying in a passage, apply it to my life, make a decision based on application and then, because it’s a “testimony,” testify to the fruit of that application. Doing that every week, I found, was stressful, counterproductive and just impossible.

A pastor in our ministry recently told me “I’m lucky if I can testify to two or three things God has done in my life in a year.” A testimony may be something we can write and share on occasion, but it’s simply impossible to do it every week.

So maybe “testimony” in our ministry is a misnomer. Maybe what we’re writing on a week-by-week basis is more of a reflection. A reflection not like a personal ranting or journaling. A reflection like a mirror.

I tend to avoid mirrors, especially full body mirrors or well-lit vanities. I don’t like to see what I truly look like — every hair and mole and crooked tooth and excessive flab. I don’t like mirrors because they force me to be honest.

If God’s word is meant to show us who we are and who he is, then maybe we can think of Bible study as looking into a mirror and our personal writing about it as a reflection. We definitely look at the Bible, the mirror, carefully. We study it inductively and metaphorically, looking for what God is saying. In that process of looking we begin to see God, we begin to see ourselves, our reflections, who God wants us to be.

It may have relieved some misconceived self-expectations, but using the word “reflection” doesn’t change the fact that writing about who God is and who I am is a struggle. A rose is still a rose.

If I’ve learned anything about writing, it’s that it’s not about grammar or correctness or sounding good. Successful writing is honest. And I’ve learned the same goes for writing a reflection. Writing about who God is and struggling to hear what he’s saying to me weekly is painful, but it’s proven necessary. I lie to myself too often, tend to even ignore God’s presence, ignore what’s in my heart, and could go on for a while not thinking anything is wrong. It’s as they say, “the truth hurts.”

But maybe, by struggling with what God is saying, struggling with the truth of who I am, I can begin to see, when turning to look at my reflection, more of God and less of me.