reflection

As her mother I want her to know what it means to be your own best friend, to be comfortable in your skin, to love yourself with a sober judgement that knows your infinite value and endless worth. 

I want her to know now all these truths that I am only just discovering for myself.

But as parent I am painfully aware, as I watch my children grow, that in some ways they are just mini reflections of myself. A mirror reflecting back to me all the beauty and the flaws of my own emotional landscape. What a discovery to see myself reflected back to me in their words and emotions. Foolishly I think that I am so adept at covering up my shortcomings but the truth is that I cannot give what I do not have. 

So I am personally working on that which I want for her: to be a friend to myself, to be comfortable in my own skin, to emotionally connect with the truth of my infinite value in a God who loves me.

I am doing this because when she sees herself in a reflection, I want her to see herself smiling back.

It has been a crazy week of commitments and catching up and letting go. My Picture Inspiration prompt this week was to capture a reflection. (Fun for me since I'm a bit geeky about reflections like I am about leading lines.) Bean and I hunted for one this afternoon and we found it in our backdoor window. Just please ignore the dirt. :) I thought about reflecting on the meaning of the smudged reflections but then realized that I was too tired to do so and then it would all be rambling. Like I said, it's been a long week but I wanted to get my weekly assignment up. Off to bed!

the many beautiful sides of her

                    

As she was looking out the back door, I asked her to park right where she was in that beautiful, soft window light. But there is rarely a serious moment when the camera is aimed in her direction. Is it the age? The fact that she is, and always has been, a total ham? Her life long experience of being her mother's photographic muse?

Anyway, the bottom right hand photo? I call it her like-OMG-I'm-Paris-Hilton! pose. I have no idea where she got it, but it comes out every time the camera is on her. I roll my eyes and snap a token photo for her and then wait for the silly Paris to subside.

And then she settles and finds her way into her thoughts and I capture her in that soft window light, all the while smiling at how precious and beautiful she is to me, and how blessed I am to know her.

When I was a child I struggled to believe my mom when she told me that I was beautiful. I know that it made me feel good to hear her say it, but my insecurities often overruled my mother's voice. (Mother's are supposed to say that aren't they?) But her persistent telling found it's way somewhere in the soil of my self worth because even in my struggle to believe it I felt a shred of confidence in the fact that I could trust her judgement. Maybe her words were true? Maybe I am beautiful.

Now I know that a mother tells her daughter that she is the most beautiful girl in the world, not only because she believes it to be true, but because it is true. I know our judgement is completely ruled by the overwhelming love we feel for our child, but who can argue against a mother's fierce love?

For if your mother believes you to be the most beautiful girl in the world, then you are.

And what about all of the other mothers who think their child is the most beautiful, cute, handsome, adorable, etc.?

They are right too.  :)

Because beauty does not merely rest in the eye of the beholder. It finds truth and validation in the heart of a daughter who hears her mother say over and over again...

Bean, you are the most beautiful girl in the entire world. There is no other like you.

Every mother wants her daughter to believe in her beauty. So I pray that if I tell her today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, that those words will take root and eventually bloom into a confident belief...one that she will wear with graceful dignity as she follows the path of her life. 

My beautiful Bean, I love you so.