In 2014, I and two of my friends decided to go to a theme park where we could explore the rides and roller coasters. We had a lot of fun and some of my adventurous spirit died that day after I said many last prayers on some of those roller coasters. As we were walking around the park, we saw an artist who was drawing portraits for people, when we got closer, we saw he was drawing caricatures and two of us decided we wanted to have one drawn of us.
When the artist was done and he handed me my drawing, my first response was this is not how I look, although I can see some slight resemblance and my friend said to me, that is why it is called a caricature.
Some weeks ago, I was clearing up some parts of my house and found this drawing that I had forgotten about rolled up in its case and I brought it out to look at it. My first thought when I saw it again was this is not how I look. I rolled it out and pinned it to the wall and kept looking at it till I started to draw some parallel with how the picture looks to me and what a lot of us carry about as a picture of ourselves.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a caricature as an
“exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics”
While the Collins dictionary defines it as
“a likeness or imitation that is so distorted or inferior as to seem ludicrous.”
This explains why when I looked at the caricature, I could see clearly that my facial features were drawn in a manner that made them look out of proportion to the other thus distorting the reality of how my face truly looks. In reflecting on this, I began to realize a lot of us are actually carrying caricatures of ourselves in different aspects or areas and believing them to be the true reflection or representation of who we are in that aspect. Life has a way of becoming an artist through experiences, conditioning, expectations, failures, situations, losses and even some successes. All of these paint a drawing of us that if we are not careful can distort the reality of who we are in such a ridiculous manner leaving us with an perception of ourselves that do not meet up with who we really are.
Just as our idea of how our face looks comes not from our ability to see our face itself but from our ability to see a reflection of our face in a mirror or through the comments and opinions of others, so also our idea of who we are is formed by the representation we hold, through what we see, hear and think.
The way a caricature looks is defined by the way the artist wants it to look. The drawing can change depending on how and what feature the artist chooses to exaggerate or distort. Therefore, an artist can draw plenty caricatures of you, and different artists can draw different forms of caricatures. This is the same way different life experiences and situations can draw you different caricatures and place in your mind as a representation of you. If you do not understand that the picture is one drawn in a manner so distorted or inferior that it tends to be ludicrous, you can go about never coming to a full realization of who you really are and ultimately what you are capable of.
This then brings me to my next question
What do you see?
Or more importantly
What are you looking at? An authentic reflection or a caricature?
God made it clear in the first book of the Bible that He created us in His image and likeness. This means we were created to look and function like God, and this should be the representation we carry of ourselves. It is in coming to a deep revelation and understanding of God as our father that we can begin to see ourselves as He sees us. This revelation changes everything about our perception and outlook. It is in understanding this truth that we can start to cast away every caricature that has been placed in our mind. We can begin to examine and question every thought or opinion we have about ourselves and look at them through the lens of God’s opinion about us and discard them when they do not match. We are able to separate who we are from what we go through, truth from facts and our reality from our circumstances.
Until we get to this place of deep understanding that a caricature is not a true reflection of us, we can find ourselves engaging in deep internal conflict when a caricature is presented to us through life experiences. We see one and say “oh I have such funny eyes” “my nose is weird”. I am this or that, which is usually something negative that can be summed up as “I am not good or worthy enough.”
A “life caricature” does not just give us a representation to have of ourselves, instead it manipulates and prevents us from seeing the real deal. It can cause us to live at a level way below who God made us to be and can lead to so much anxiety and worry when we keep defining ourselves through the lens of every happening, failure, rejection, negativity, hurt, betrayal, loss and setbacks.
In order to switch to a true reflection of ourselves, we have to start by asking some introspective questions about what picture we have been carrying, whose opinion weighs the most in our lives, what is our understanding of who God really is and who we really are. It is in seeking the answers to this questions that we start to confront patterns and drawings that do not align with who God says we are, we start to drop every drawing that is not a true reflection of us. These answers are easily found through studying God’s word and opening up ourselves to His Spirit which gives us a clear revelation of who God is.
The beauty of this revelation is it gives us a heart experience that surpasses all other life experiences and becomes the anchor upon which our self-definition rests. It gives us a mind switch so profound that we can laugh off every kind of caricature life tries to show to us and most importantly gives us stability, strength and hope to go through all of life’s experiences with an unshakable understanding of who we really are.