I don’t like to dust and only do so when it is absolutely necessary. Yet, with the summer fans blowing and the dogs shedding I found myself working my duster the other day wiping dog hair and dust off the pictures hanging on my wall. I was going as quickly as possible trying to get it over with. In my haste, however, I knocked one the pictures down. I managed to catch it before it hit the floor. Carefully, I started to hang it back on the wall when I saw him. He had thick, wavy, brown hair that was parted in the middle. His cheeks were full and his face unlined. He seemed to be staring off in the distance with his brown eyes and had a serious expression on his face. It was a picture of me at twenty. I finished hanging him back up and wondered vaguely where he had gone.

That evening when I was brushing my teeth and looking in the mirror I wondered again where that guy was. The hair was thin and mostly silver now. The cheekbones had lost their fat and the face was full of wrinkles. The brown eyes were now staring through a pair of bifocals. But when I looked deeper I could see that he was still there. In fact, I think he may have grown a bit younger on the inside. His serious expression and worries for the future had been replaced by a smile and a trust in God’s love. His body wasn’t as strong and fit as it once was but his soul was stronger and in better shape than ever. His life on this Earth might be closer to its end but his life in Heaven was closer to its beginning.

The truth is these bodies are just the temporary vehicles that carry around our essential and eternal souls. We should take good care of them but not identify with them. The real us is forever young. The real us is God’s love personified. The real us is the shining spirit within. Live from the real you then. Let your soul lead and your body will follow.