When did you last look in a mirror? How would you feel without access to one?
An intriguing item is recorded in Exodus 38:8. It says Bezalel made the laver for the tabernacle from bronze mirrors. Did you know they made mirrors out of bronze?
I can't imagine the women of Israel had mirrors while they were slaves in Egypt. They must have asked their Egyptian neighbours for them the night before they left. Considering what you would have to do to a sheet of bronze to make it reflective, I imagine they were a luxury item. To have one in the Israeli desert camp, then, must have been a status symbol - the most cherished possession of the women who owned one.
She would pull it out of her leather bag, polish it up with a corner of her wool sash, and turn it as she peered, trying to catch her face in the best light. How lurid it must have appeared in the copper-hued glow! Her skin darkened, her eyes oddly reflected, her visage warped with the slight convex of the metal; she used her imagination to fill in the picture. A daughter of Israel should look like a queen!
Then comes a voice outside the tent. It is her neighbour, who does not have a mirror, but dearly loves to catch a glimpse in one.
"I brought you three dates this time. Ben found them on the edge of camp. Can I have it for the morning?"
"Not today. I have Pilgah coming in a few minutes. She has a skein of blue thread."
Why would she part with her treasure? It brings friends, wealth, esteem, acclaim; not to mention a knowledge of her own face. Yet many women eagerly gave their bronze mirrors to the building of the tabernacle. With willing hearts they threw them in the growing pile of trinkets destined to become a reflective pool for the cleansing of the servants of God.
That mirror was never meant for that woman, to pamper her vanity. God gave the Israelites favour with the Egyptians so they would have the materials for the tabernacle. He could have simply dropped the right amount of bronze from the sky when Bezalel needed it. But He chose to give it to a woman first. He gave her the oppourtunity to give it up for Him.
It must have been hard. Maybe she had a daughter who begged to keep the mirror. But she proved her love, and gave it to the Lord anyway.
Has God asked you to give something up? Is it hard to see how it could be best? Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.