The weather is warming up and beach season is upon us! Many of us are confronted with a mix of emotions: dread, insecurity, comparison, and shallow thoughts about appearances.
As a parent, I have the privilege of speaking truth in love to my kids.
As a person, I also have the challenge of speaking truth in love to myself.
Surprisingly, I’ve found that my three-year-old daughter is gently correcting my thoughts without even realizing it herself. In other words, God is allowing my relationship with my daughter to draw me closer to Him, to see myself as He sees me.
What is Beauty to a Child?
My toddler, like most toddlers, is insatiably curious and finds beauty and joy in most things. She wears mix-matched clothes. When I say mixed-matched, I’m talking patterns on patterns with bright colors, and fun bows to keep her hair out of her face. Anytime she puts on a dress, she stands up, exclaims “It’s Coronation Day!” as she spins and declares herself a princess. Every time, without fail, when she’s pretending to be a princess she has a huge smile on her face, her eyes light up, and she giggles as she makes her way to look at herself in the mirror. Pure joy encapsulated her face and mine as she confidently walked around in her dress with her wild beautiful hair.
I’ve come to appreciate my daughter’s unique perspective on beauty!
My style is not very princess-y. I’m writing this sitting on my back patio, messy “mom bun,” resembling a character from the Victorian Era, complete with wild run-away, spiraling curls that grow frizzier by the minute in the South Carolina humidity.
Just the other day, my daughter sat next to me on our patio. She took a minute to examine and rearrange my untamed mane. Springing a single curl, she sweetly smiled and said, “beautiful.”
My frizzy, messy, fly-away curls, and postpartum baby-hair is… beautiful?
I stopped the urge to correct her.
There’s nothing to correct.
If anything, she corrected me – I am so grateful that she did.
In all of my un-put-togetherness, she sees beauty.
Opening up about frizzy hair comes naturally to me. But when it comes to stretch marks, it’s a different story….
While I was pregnant with our son, my daughter interacted with my growing baby belly. She sang to her baby brother on the other side of my stomach, feeling him kick, kissing my baby belly accompanied with a sweet, “I love you brother.”
After he was born, she continued her sweet jesters, songs, and kisses just as innocently as ever. I knew there was a lot that she did not understand. I embraced her kindness while also explaining that her brother was in the other room and not in my belly.
If you are not aware, baby bellies don’t shrink right after babies are born and even then, our bodies never look the same. Accepting this can be very difficult. While my daughter did not understand what happened, I couldn’t help but notice that I still looked kind-of pregnant.
Over time, she caught on that her brother was not in two places at once. During her bedtime routine one evening, she pulled up my shirt to look at my belly. This time, she was looking at a belly adorned with stretch marks, wrinkles, and excess skin. (sounds glorious, right?). As she traced my stretch marks with her fingers, she exclaimed, “Mama, look! Your tummy is so beautiful!”
Que the tears.
She had no idea that what she named “beautiful” our culture wrongfully shames.
Her honest observations about beauty are a stark contrast to the culture that often deems such changes as less than beautiful.
At three, she does not conform to societal beauty standards. She remains unaffected, and I hope she never succumbs to the world’s shallow definitions. I hope that she grows in the knowledge that God has made her beautiful. Simultaneously, I aspire to reshape my own self-perception and silence the world’s unrealistic expectations for our bodies.
What or who is shaping her perspective of beauty?
…What’s shaping mine?
Around this same time, there was a craft my daughter brought home from church sitting on our piano that read, “God made me beautiful” with a reference to Psalm 139.
“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God – you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration – what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.”
-Psalm 139:13-16, MSG
How amazing is our God, using a child’s sweet words and a simple children’s ministry craft to turn my thoughts toward Him! If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then I am grateful to be held in the gaze of the One who created the universe—whose name is love. May I reflect that love and kindness, extending it as innocently as my child does to me, and as boldly as my Father in Heaven.
I’m glad that I don’t have to submit to the beauty standards of the world. And I hope and pray that my evolving, sanctifying perspective will guide my children to see themselves the way God does!
As we reflect on embracing God’s definition of beauty, consider these resources:
“Breaking Free from Body Shame: Dare to Reclaim What God Has Named Good” by Jess Connolly
“Risen Motherhood: Gospel Hope for Everyday Moments” By Emily A. Jensen and Laura Wifler
Reflections for you:
What insecurities about your appearance can you surrender to the Lord?
Who can you invite to speak truth in love to you?
Whom in your life can you encourage today?
What Scriptures, words of encouragement, or resources have been helpful for you in this area?
Special thanks… because I’m not alone: I’m grateful for my family, raising our children with Ben, and friends who speak truth. Special thanks to our church’s kids’ ministry team for impacting our children and equipping parents in faith. If you’re part of the team, thank you for building God’s Kingdom, not just on Sundays, but in families too. Your influence is lasting, and we appreciate you partnering with us parents!