Sometimes, you just need to remember that you’re beautiful.
On the morning of St. Patrick’s Day, my 6-year-old daughter called me to her room first thing in the morning.
She had been sick with a fever the day before, so I fully expected to open her bedroom door and find her cuddled in her bed. Instead, she was sitting in a bright green shirt – pantless – on her floor beside her dresser, in tears.
“I just can’t live like this!”
As she vented her frustration, tears spilled out of her eyes. Before I could ask what was wrong, she continued, “I don’t have any green pants!!!”
It was all I could do to not crack a smile or begin laughing at her.
There are moments when my children will say things in all seriousness that could make me roar with laughter. But this was not a moment for joking with my little girl. She was completely serious. And completely distraught.
I calmly picked her up off the floor, cuddled her and helped her pick out a suitable pair of pants – and no, they weren’t bright green. I’m hoping it was her fever that caused her sheer desperation – but in that moment, when I knew how ridiculous the importance of green pants were, to my daughter it felt like a crisis.
As I got to thinking about her dramatic reaction, I questioned, “How much is that just like me?”
How often do I make a ridiculously huge deal out of a minor situation and my Heavenly Father knows it’s not important in the big scheme of things? How often do I try to make sure I look just right when it doesn’t matter AT ALL?
Just as my daughter truly is beautiful no matter what she wears, so am I. And so are you.
Whenever I think about what I should wear or how I should get my hair cut or how much weight I’m losing, it’s as ridiculous as crying about not having green pants on St. Patrick’s Day. It just doesn’t matter. It truly doesn’t matter what I look like.
A gentle reminder
This same reminder, that true beauty is NOT on the outside, is echoed in Chris Shook and Megan Shook Alpha’s new book, Beauty Begins: Making Peace with Your Reflection. The mother-daughter duo delve into how superficial “pretty” is – and how true inner beauty is something to be treasured. As they write:
“Here’s the good news. You are not your body! Your body is just an earth suit, a container for your spirit, the real you.”
The book is filled with reminders of how fleeting – and pointless – society’s standards of beauty are, as well as an encouragement to become a truly beautiful woman.
Shook and Alpha write, “Ironically, we’re the most beautiful when we no longer care if we are beautiful. In fact, when we aren’t thinking of ourselves at all!”
God, the Master Creator, created each of us to be beautiful in our own special way. The sooner women embrace that and shut out the world’s unattainable and ever-changing expectations, the better.
Helping ourselves and our daughters
Beauty Begins: Making Peace with Your Reflection is an easy and encouraging read – women who have struggled (and are struggling) with self-image need to read this.
It also would be a fantastic book for mothers and daughters to read together – especially pre-teen and teenage daughters. (I’m saving my copy of the book to read with my own daughter in a few years.)
Just as adult women need to be affirmed – and reaffirmed – that we are beautiful, our daughters desperately need to know it too.
Does it tend to be hard to remember that you’re beautiful? What helps?
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of Beauty Begins. All opinions are my own. Purchasing items through links in this post will result in a commission for No Place Like Home. Thank you for supporting this website!
All images courtesy of Pixabay.
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