Five minute Friday: Beauty

Every Friday I join Lisa-Jo over at The Gypsy Mama for a quick, no edit writing topic, and we each watch, often in surprise, at what appears beneath our tapping fingers in the short span of five minutes. This week she pulls together what has been on her heart of late and turns it into our prompt for the day: finding the beauty that is us and our world.

So let’s talk about it, shall we?

GO.

 Five Minute Friday: Beauty

How many times have we comforted our daughters after someone has hit them with some hard words:

You’re ugly. You’re fat. The boys will never like you. Those clothes look awful on you. What were you thinking?

Ow.

You hold your precious babies close, and wipe away the tears and those words they believe.

We remind our daughters that they are beautiful, both in our eyes and God’s, that what counts is what is inside.

How many times have we said that? “What counts is what’s inside. Beauty is only skin deep.”

And yet, with all our support and love and helping them take their first steps across the living room floor and then through the hazards of the teen years, we may be setting an example that is absolutely counter to what we pray for them.

STOP.

Arrrgggh. I’m not done. This hasn’t happened in a while. I beg your indulgence to finish my thoughts.

Is the phrase below familiar phrase to you?

“Oh, no. You don’t need me in the picture. I look awful. Just you, hon, and the kids. That’s great. That’s all I need.”

Let me repeat that in case you missed it.

I. Look. Awful.

How many of you shun the camera, put your hand in front of your face or threaten death to anyone who does attempt to capture your image?

I used to work for a photography studio, and I would sit with the parents as we would go through the delightful images which clearly showed the love between the family members.

Almost without fail, any time a picture of the mom would appear, she would immediately say, “Oh! That’s awful. Toss that.”

We work so hard to be good role models to our daughters, and here we are-regularly-teaching them that our words mean nothing, that when push comes to shove, it is the outer beauty that is the most important.

Have you ever thought of it that way, ladies?

Back in the studio, the husband and the kids would protest, that they loved the pictures of mom, but mom was resolute in her utter dislike for the photos.

What I would say is that it was important for the family to have photos of you, just as it was important to have photos of everyone else. I would remind her that what her family sees is the woman they love.

The wife he adores and married, and would marry again.

The children who, in spite of their sometimes taxing behaviors, love their mom to the ends of the earth.

I would ask her to see herself as her family does, and to go easier on herself.

I ask the same of you today.

Be the role model for your daughter(s) you desire to be.

Accept yourself for the beautiful woman that you are, and the next time there is a gathering where people pull out their cameras, just smile and say “Go  right ahead. I’m ready.”

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