Mirrors—the unhung heroes of interior design. Writing for the “Wirecutter” feature in the New York Times, Ivy Elrod extols the virtues of a well-placed mirror.

“Small spaces, like tight hallways or entries, often lack abundant natural light. In such cases, a well-placed mirror can give the illusion of more space while helping to reflect and disperse what light there is. Hang your mirror on a wall across from a light source (like an adjacent window or lamp), and the reflection will bounce that glow into the rest of your space,” advises Elrod in her article, “You Don’t Need More Space. You Just Need More Mirrors.” (Published December 4, 2025, in the New York Times.)

Elrod consulted several interior designers and architects on their “favorite ways to employ mirrors, particularly when problem-solving dark or tight spaces.”

In his letter to scattered believers, James also referenced the potential effects of a mirror: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:22-25)

Like a mirror, the Word lights dark spaces—the dark spaces of our souls—and by reflecting the truth of God’s character reveals the nature of our sins. That mirror can indeed be “problem-solving the dark or tight spaces” of our souls, unless we walk away and forget what we saw. God’s Word disperses light so we can see clearly the way he wants us to live—to be “a doer who acts.”

Interior designers, Elrod points out, also use light-reflecting mirrors to give a space a sense of expansiveness. Our God does more than give a sense of light or expansiveness to dark corners; he is the “Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). He is love’s pure light; his very nature is expansive.

In Romans 8:38-39, Paul’s words span extremes to describe God’s nature: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

True to his expansive nature, God has given us the treasure of the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4) A “doer who acts” and is not just “a hearer” carries this treasure, ironically, in ordinary jars of clay—perhaps worn, faded and cracked in places—so that his light will shine in the darkest spaces of the darkest places of the world.