Mother Love

I was out walking yesterday with Ayla strapped to me in her Ergo carrier (which we love, btw)…and she was just bouncing along in front of me, looking around, cooing her approval every once in a while. I kept leaning down to kiss the top of her head or tickling her feet or holding her little hands, and I just felt so overwhelmed with the preciousness of this little girl. I always felt that I wouldn’t make a very good mama to girls, and I would have said that I would much rather have a house full of boys than a house full of girls…but now? A house full of girls sounds just fine with me. I never knew I could love having a daughter like I do.

As we were walking, I whispered this into her ear:: I hope you always know that you are beautiful.

Tell me this…why does it feel so difficult and even wrong to believe that we are beautiful? Like, for me to actually think and believe that I am a beautiful woman just feels…wrong. Is it just me? Maybe you can easily believe in the truth about yourself, and honestly, I hope that you do believe in your beauty and worth as a woman. But I think most of us struggle with this. Most of us live in a place where we feel so negative and derogatory about ourselves that to think anything else feels foreign and just wrong.

WHY IS THIS?!?

I actually don’t really know the answer to that…you could say it’s because of the media and images that are endlessly photoshopped and cultural expectations and Victoria Secret models…and maybe that’s partly true. But maybe it also has a lot to do with the war that the enemy of our souls has waged on our hearts. Maybe it’s because he knows that if he can get us to believe the ugly lies that are constantly bombarding our minds, then we lose our essence as a woman. If we believe we are beautiful, then we walk in confidence, power, and authority. If we believe anything else, then we walk in insecurity and weakness.

When you believe that you are beautiful, your eyes sparkle and you feel alive and you want to kiss your husband and you get creative ideas and you want to wear pretty things and you want to love people more and your life is just better, fuller, happier because of what you believe. We need more woman whose eyes sparkle in this world, right?

So, dears, it’s ok to believe that you are beautiful.
You’re actually supposed to believe it.
It’ll make your eyes sparkle.

What about you: what do you think blocks us as woman from believing that we are beautiful?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Ayla and I spent last week in South Carolina at my parent’s house, and it was a fun time of seeing lots of friends and family and basically being on what felt like a vacation, hehe. Mom helped me can some salsa on Friday, and I was really glad to get that done. It was on my top priority to do over the summer, but between baby and moving, it just never happened. Hopefully it’s enough to last us until next summer…but then we do eat a lot of salsa, so we’ll see.

I planned to leave at 5:15 on Saturday morning to meet a friend on my way for coffee, and then head for home. Thanks to setting my alarm for PM instead of AM, I woke up right at 5:15 (thanks to ayla). I got ready in about five minutes flat, threw everything in my suitcase, fed Ayla, and dashed out the door. Thankfully lights and traffic were cooperative and I wasn’t that late for my breakfast date. We hung out at the coffee shop for an hour or so, and then left for Tennessee. Ayla slept for the first three hours (!!!), and since we only had five hours from where I met my friend, she was sleeping for most of the trip…that always makes the trip feel so much easier. We got home a little after noon, and unpacked, did some baking, and sat around waiting for Ben to come home from his trip to New York. His flight was a little delayed, so he didn’t get in until six thirty that evening, and it was really really really good to see him finally come driving in and be back together again. We missed him! Ayla was so content to just sit in his lap when we were having supper, and she would just turning up her head to look at his face over and over again.

We spent the day at home on Sunday…a leisure breakfast, a walk around the neighborhood (ayla loves her ergo carrier so much and gets such a pleased little expression on her face when she’s in it), a big lunch, naps, and then evening church. Ayla was having a bit of a rough afternoon, and things didn’t get much better at church…but we made it, hehe.

Here are five things I love:

– this pretty thing
– this helpful tip
– this song
– this coat
– this dessert

Have a great week, dears!