top of page

Let go of your image: Here's one joyful trick to fix your vanity

  • Writer: Carson Speight
    Carson Speight
  • 12 minutes ago
  • 3 min read

It was a summer Saturday morning, a day brimming with possibilities, so I did what a middle-aged dad is supposed to do on these kinds of days—find something that needs fixing.


Of course, finding broken things is the easy part. It’s repairing them that takes all your time and money. On this day, I didn’t even have to go looking. My wife told me the vanity in my daughter’s room was broken.


When I went to look at the piece, it was a wonder it was still standing. Its legs were askew, and when I attempted to move one into a firmer position, the whole thing teetered like a structure in a landslide. We were a sneeze away from a small, Macy’s-worth of toiletries crashing to the ground.


Not only were there loose screws, the wood was cracked around two legs, which meant I could tighten those screws like a torture rack, and the vanity would still totter like it inhaled too much Bath and Body Works.


Which left me with two choices.


I could destroy this vanity and buy a new one. Or give it my best Tim-the-Tool-Man-Taylor effort and repair it in a special way you'd never find on YouTube.


Naturally, I frugally opted for the latter and drove some new screws through some different parts of the wood to get that structure solid.


Proudly, I had fixed the vanity.


Why call it a vanity?


Isn't it strange to call a piece of furniture a "vanity"? We don't name other things after negative character traits. Why don't we call a recliner a "sloth"?


Baby, all you do is watch football in your sloth all day. Get up outta your sloth and do something for the family.


With a vanity, the name of the furniture warns you about using it. Looking to start the day with a deadly sin? Come have a seat in your vanity!


What is vanity anyway?


“Vanity” is derived from the Latin “vanitas” and means emptyness. Think of vanity as something that appears to be, but isn’t. Like a vapor that disappears or a mirage in the desert.


When people are vain, they see themselves in a prideful way, as better than others. While that feels like something important and real, it's actually empty. Instead of a true image, it's an illusion.


A powerful yet dangerous illusion


In C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a young girl named Lucy finds a magical book. As she turns the pages, she's captivated by the images that are alive and moving, and the spells that accompany them.


She comes to a page and sees images of herself. In the first image, she looks particularly ugly. In the next one, she's extraordinarily beautiful. So beautiful that when the image of Lucy looks at the real Lucy, the real Lucy has to turn away in embarrassment.


Then she sees images of princes searching and fighting to win her over because she's the most sought-after princess in the land, and her sister is plain and undesirable by comparison. All of it appeals to her insecurities about her looks, and she's convinced she must say the spell to make it real.


We experience life like Lucy. We're spellbound by a false—yet powerfully persuasive—image of ourselves. This empty image, this vanity, blinds us from reality and compels us to pursue things that are ultimately void and meaningless, whether it's success, wealth, or everlasting beauty.


If vanity is a false image that's harmful to us, what's the true image of ourselves we should care about?


The true image we're meant to reflect


The trick to fixing our vanity is understanding the image we're supposed to reflect. And here's the shock—it's not our own.


In the Genesis creation narrative, God says, “Let us make humans in our image.” In other words, God created a species to reflect His own character.


In the Narnia stories, Lucy is a girl of great character. She often reflects the character of her hero, Aslan the Lion, who created Narnia. And when Lucy is about to cast the spell from the magical book to make her false image come true, Aslan appears on the page, growling at her. He loves Lucy, but hates that she cares more about her false image, and that she wants to be someone other than who she was made to be—someone who simply reflects his character.


Once our life's pursuit is about bearing the Creator's image, our vanity fades. We lose interest in the false image.


On that summer Saturday morning, I might've temporarily fixed the vanity. But really, the vanity couldn't be fixed. It needed to be replaced. And so it should be with our vanity, that we'd stop pursuing it and discover the true image we were made to bear.


© 2025 | Layman's Lens | All rights reserved

bottom of page