Beautiful {five minute friday}

Beautiful

People stop me in the grocery store or on the sidewalk or at the mall and tell me my children are beautiful.  They marvel over long lashes and Amelia’s swirling hair and Gus’s grin and the olive skin of my big girls and aren’t afraid to tell me that I’ve been blessed with these gorgeous kids.

I wonder if they wonder how that happened?  If they look at me and think, how in the world did she get such pretty kids?  It’s been a trap all my life, this feeling of not quite being as pretty as the girl next to me in the desk or beside me on the homecoming float or in front of me in the class registration line.  I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve settled into myself a bit.  Found some pieces of myself that I don’t mind, stopped worrying so much about those pieces I do.  That gap in my front teeth.  That ski jump nose that got me teased everyday in middle school.  These hips that have never been anything but round.

But my three girls and baby boy got pieces of me and pieces of their daddy and somehow the great God who has always known my heart struggles with beauty fitted those pieces together to give me children that show me just how beautiful I am.

Especially when I stop using the rearview mirror or someone else’s eyes to see.