When I was a kid my mom told me quite matter-of-factly that
I wasn’t pretty but that I did have a
homey look, not homely but homey. I think she meant that I had a nice face, not
ugly just not “cute” and for me not to set my sights too high and be hurt
because I was never going to be a “princesses”.
I know more than once I’ve said things to my daughter regarding her
looks that I should have just kept to myself. She, like me has trouble keeping
her weight static and I’m sure is aware when the scale creeps upward. I do hope
I gave her confidence in her beauty because she is beautiful.
Had my mom regularly said “you look beautiful” it wouldn’t
have really mattered whether I was or not, whether the world considered me
beautiful or not. I would have known that even if it wasn’t something obvious
to be seen that I was at least inside, beautiful.
I called my daughter one day very upset because my mom had
told me I shouldn’t ever wear jeans as “they aren’t very flattering on you”. I
didn’t think I looked that bad in jeans and given the choice I live in them. I asked my daughter “do I look terrible in
jeans?” She just laughed and said “I don’t think so”. She also said “one of the
reasons Mike married me was because he figured if I looked like my mom when I
was your age it wouldn’t be bad”. If I
was as cool as my daughter, right now, that wouldn’t be too bad either.
So the thing is, you tell someone enough times that they are
stupid or ugly or worthless and they will believe it and become just that. If
you tell someone they are kind, beautiful, smart, they will at least try to be
exactly that. My mom loves me. She wants me to have a good life filled with
good things. Sometimes the things she says come not from her but from her past
and I have come to understand that. I try not to take things the wrong way. I
have the benefit of a group of the world’s best Godly women surrounding me and
reminding me that I am and always have been a princess, a daughter of the King
of Kings.
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