This questions comes a week after Mother's Day, but it's a question that my daughter posed to me a day before Mother's Day, and I'm finally getting around to writing down my thoughts as a tribute to all you moms out there.
My youngest daughter is so open and honest, and has no trouble expressing her sweet little thoughts to me, and she does it with so much love and truthfulness. She wanted me to hear one of her favorite songs from her ipod, and it was entitled, "How Beautiful You Are." She started singing it to me, and asked me if I believed I was beautiful.
My response? "Of course not" I replied, as always. She couldn't understand how I would think that. Well, at 48 years old, four children later, I really have never thought of myself as pretty or beautiful. I don't particularly like my features (the imperfections), my body is out of shape, and my curves sag.....there, I said it!
She was quick to correct me, though. She explained that as she was having her devotions earlier that day, she learned from Proverbs 31 was real beauty, the beauty of a woman in God's eyes, really was. Beauty came from a mom who worked devotedly to the benefit of the ones she loved. And as she carried out her tasks lovingly and unselfishly, beauty would develop from within her soul, and then pour out onto everything she did. Yes, she would appear beautiful, because she was beautiful from the inside out.
My little girl explained that for a long time she never thought of herself as very pretty, because she started listening to the little whispers from the enemy that would convince her otherwise. But no more! She heard the truth and wholeheartedly believed it, and now wanted me to believe it as well.
Moms, we are beautiful creatures in the eyes of our Lord, and our loved ones, and we need to believe it ourselves! Don't believe what your doubtful mind wants to whisper to you regarding the new set of wrinkles you see reflected in the mirror. Beauty doesn't just go away because you don't see yourself as you looked when you were 20 or 30 years old. Beauty grows gracefully with age, and keeps on developing for as long as we are loving and taking care of the ones God entrusts to us.
You are beautiful, mom!
