The county fair.  The wonderful sounds and smells of people and animals and fair food.  The crazy rides, the silly games.  Laughter and screaming filling the air.  She was having a wonderful time.  The smile hadn’t left her face all day.  Until now.

She had let go of her father’s hand for just a second to stop and look at the prizes she could win at the ring toss.  Big, friendly stuffed animals smiling right at her.  She turned to ask her daddy for money  to play, but she realized that she had gotten swept away by a crowd of strangers.  And fear gripped her heart.  She was so small, and everyone around her was so big.  They knew where they were going, but she didn’t.  They were laughing and happy without her father, but she wasn’t.  In their rush and distraction, they didn’t see the fear spilling down her cheeks in the form of fear.  Where was daddy? She knew he was here.  He would never leave her, but she couldn’t see him anywhere…

The crowd was overwhelming and made her feel smaller and more frightened than ever.  So she made her way to the nearest shelter she could, with the fewest people possible.  House of mirrors.  She didn’t know what that was exactly, but how bad could it be?  At least she would recognize the faces staring back at her…or so she thought.

What happened next was more terrifying than the crowd she was avoiding.  Every mirror she looked into showed her an image of herself that was distorted and almost unrecognizable.

The first that she came to made her look extremely tall.  Like she should be able to do anything and fear nothing.  The image only reminded her of the reality of her smallness.  And she shrunk away to the next.

What she came to was a mirror that showed her as deformed and ugly.  It frightened her to see herself as repulsive and hideous and she turned to run out of the building.

But it had become a maze of her own reflection.  None of them a picture of who she remembered herself being or looking like.

She looked up to see herself looking like she had been put under a huge weight that had shrunk her to abnormal proportions.  She turned from that to a mirror portraying her as enormously wide as if stretched to her very limits, ready to burst at any moment.

Each image seemed to accentuate her every flaw and imperfection and make it larger than life.  The tears that now streamed down her face were pathetically sad and ugly as they stared back at her.  She no longer felt comfort in looking at herself, but horror.

She ran as fast as she could, bumping into mirror after mirror.  In the background was the awful laughter of mocking.  A fearful, hideous, haunting laugh.  A laugh telling her there was no escape.  That she may as well stop trying.  That she was indeed a horrible creature, unworthy of love, ugly to the core.  And this was why she could not find her father.  Because he had left her.  And the laughter continued as she ran, getting louder and louder.  She could no longer remember what she really looked like – what was reality and what was just a house of mirrors.

Her tears were now nearly blinding her, but she continued running and bumping, frantic to get out of this place.  And then she ran smack into someone.  She was afraid to look up to see who it was, afraid that it could be the person behind the mocking laugh.

But arms were wrapping around her.  Familiar arms.  Strong comforting arms.  The arms she knew so well.  And then she was touched by the hand.  The hand she had let go of.  The hand of her daddy.  The hand that was leading her through the crazy crowd.  That sweet hand reached up to her tear stained face and brushed the hair out of her eyes so that she could look into his.  And then she saw it.  The true reflection that she couldn’t see in the house of mirrors or in any mirror.  The reflection of herself in his eyes.  And it was beautiful.  She knew that in his eyes she was more beautiful than she would ever see herself or than anyone else would see her.  His eyes saw her heart, her soul.  His eyes saw her as his precious child, his sweet girl, the love of his life, the apple of his eye.

Her tears were replaced with an enormous smile of understanding.  As long as she held his hand, she would never get lost again.  And as long she looked into his eyes, she could forget what any mirror told her and know the truth.  That she was his and she was loved.  And as they left that horrid house of mirrors hand in hand, she heard each mirror shatter behind them in the presence of reality…