Blinking hard, I stared into my rearview mirror trying to get an unobstructed view. The back window is so dirty and the rain seems to only add to its opacity. Staring intently it looks like my sticker is gone, but how could it be.

My 12-year-old notices I am noticing something.

“It looks like my window sticker is gone,” I say out loud.

It has only been on that back window a few weeks and I can’t imagine it coming off unless someone had pulled it away. What I see through the mirror, dirt and rain looks so much like the gooey, gunky residue from when a sticker has been unwillingly scraped off.

Turning in his seat, my son non-chalantly announces, “It’s there, Mom.”

Though I believe him, what he is saying, I find myself still doubting and wondering since I cannot see it. The sticker reads “memento mori.” It is Latin for remember your death. Not that it is easy to forget you are going to die, but the reminder is still a good one. Live daily in light of the fact we will one day die, stand before our Creator. Live this day in such a way that you are prepared for that moment. 

I drive on.

It is hard to see even out of the front windshield with the wipers going as the rain pours down and fast moving vehicles kick up even more water.

I think of Paul writing at the end of the “love” chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

I’m definitely seeing in this mirror dimly, if at all. 

Really my favorite part of that whole chapter is verse 10, “but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” Yes that is pulled out of context but it is no less true. Jesus is the perfect and when we see him, we won’t worry about any half measures.

My distrust in the moment makes me think of my time as a sportswriter for a local paper in Georgia.

I watched many a game—baseball, soccer, football, basketball—and took detailed notes when I did. I tweeted out updates, took pictures and video and later wrote it all down. Sometimes I struggled with being too detailed, what to leave out. What I learned then was many people could all be watching the same game and come away with different views on what was important, how it all happened. 

Every mom skewed towards their child’s performance, understandably so. It was a good lesson in objective reporting and how we each have a different filter we see by. Could someone trust what I said happened? I hope so. Did I ever make mistakes. You bet. The final score, however, would not deceive. There was an ultimate bottom line.

In today’s political realm everyone’s view is skewed to their own framework. And now we live in a world where people cite things like “my truth.” I never considered truth subjective, I guess. That seems to go against its very definition. 

Holding fast to the word of God is a goal of mine. He defines truth. 

Once “truth” gets into the hands of every individual on the planet, it cannot help but become something less than. Like reporting on a baseball game, you may feel like it didn’t go well because your child gave up the three-run homer, but the mother of the clean up batter who knocked it out of the park feels it went fantastic. That is her truth. Either way that bottom line, that score doesn’t let you off the hook. 

I keep driving in the dark, wet morning—craning my neck to see if that sticker is visible and my son looks bewildered by my unbelieving efforts. 

Once he’s at school and I exit my truck, I see plainly, boldly, “memento mori” staring back at me. I feel a little foolish. I wasn’t even looking at the right spot. I only had a partial view of the back window. Now the partial has passed away. It literally wasn’t possible for me to see it from where I was sitting, but my skewed perspective had no impact on the truth.