How Do You See Yourself?

If I could give you one thing in life, I would give you the ability to see yourself through my eyes, only then you would realize how special you are to me.

My friend Taryn posted this quote beneath a photo of her four kids on Instagram. Her kids aren’t little anymore, two are in college, and the other two are in middle school. They are well past the “everything you do is adorable,” stage. They have lives and opinions and dreams of their own now. They are old enough to have experienced things that have begun to form opinions about who they think they are and what they might possibly become. Taryn see’s the innocence and childlike qualities, she always will, they are her babies.

Somewhere along the way in life we begin to see ourselves in a certain way. We either label ourselves based on past experience or we get labeled by others and right or wrong we take those words and let them form who we become. When I was young people told me I was personable and friendly. I liked this label and it has propelled me to be a person who enjoys being around others and has given me the confidence to be open and outgoing which has fostered a multitude of lifelong friendships.

Another label spoken over me that I held onto for years and years is that I wasn’t pretty. I hit that Jr High awkward stage right about the same time my sister hit the senior in high school beauty stage. My mom was in her 40’s and well, they got a lot of attention. At one point someone said to me, “If you ever want to be a head turner you will need to dye your hair, get a nose job and a boob job.” I was 15. It wasn’t true but it sure shaped how I viewed myself for the next 10 years.

…”Wow! You look so much like your dad!”

I became the family historian and have spent the last several years pouring over family photos. I ran across my freshmen year school picture the other day and other than the frosted hair and blue eyeshadow, I liked what I saw. I was pretty. I wished I could go back to the awkward 15-year-old me and tell her it was a lie and that she had so much to look forward to as she would grow up to be a college graduate, wife, mom, small business owner, runner, breast cancer survivor and a writer.  Her beauty is different than that of her sister and mother but she is still pretty. The confidence that knowledge would have given me would have saved me from years of poor decisions trying to make up for what I thought I lacked.

I loved Taryn’s quote because it reminds me of what God sees when He looks at her, her children and all of us. He sees the whole picture. And he likes what he sees. What if we lived  life seeing ourselves through our Father’s eyes? How much different would our lives look? How much more confident would we be? I’m guessing we would spend a whole lot less time thinking about ourselves and get on with the business of living.

Have A Beautiful Day!