Let it go

I am so grateful to be a mom to two wonderful daughters, but I didn't realize until lately how difficult it can be. I'm sure parenting boys has it's own challenges which I'm blissfully unaware of, but parenting daughters is emotionally draining. Especially as these girls grow up and start to have all those crazy hormones running amok inside them. It seems like lately everything is a big issue that needs to be talked through, cried about or otherwise dealt with. Someday's it's very tiring and it challenges my patience. I know I've been exactly where they are and I remember how it can feel, but having all these years between then and now can skew my perspective.

As I've gotten older I've grown thicker and thicker skin, in that I don't care so much what others think. I mean, I care about others, but I don't stress out (too much) about what people will think of me if I do this or that. I still struggle with insecurity at times, but it use to cause me so much more anxiety. I know whose opinion matters and whose just really doesn't. I know what matters in life and who I am. I know it's something I've learned mainly through the hard knocks of life, and I wish I could just impart that wisdom directly into the tender hearts of my girls. I hate to see them going through the hard stuff in order to learn this.

Unfortunately, that's not the way it goes. And so lately it's come to my attention that both my beautiful girls are struggling with how they look. Kids can be so mean, both have had comments made to them 

at school about it. Now both of them are struggling with what they think of themselves and these particular comments. It seems to bother my eldest daughter more, I've caught her making comments about not liking her hair or that she's ugly. It's heartbreaking when all I see when I look at her is beauty.

And it doesn't matter how many times I tell her she's beautiful, if some kid at school called her ugly, it must be true. That's her logic and it kills me. I know she's not a minority, most girls at this awkward middle school age are struggling with how they look and how they are changing and they have no control over most of it. She's starting to care how her hair looks, what she's wearing, etc, and how she fits in. Some days it's hard for me to watch her go through this.

I just want them both to believe me when I tell them they are perfect just the way they are. And then I think about the times I've been critical of my own self, of my hair that has no body or super round face. And I wonder if my comment here or there about it has contributed to their views. I need to remind myself what I've been telling my girls lately, and that is this:

I am perfectly made. 

No, I'm not perfect, but I was made exactly this way. God intended me to have flat hair, to have a round face, to not be able to hold a note. And I like to ask the girls, "Does God make mistakes?". No, of course not, He's perfect. I love this verse:

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16

If God created the whole earth and all it's intricacies like the water cycle and weather and seasons and didn't mess up that, don't you think He could handle us? Yep. He did. He made each and every one of us exactly the way He wanted us to be, and like it says in Genesis 1:31, "God saw all that he had made and it was very good." He didn't scrap us and start over, He wanted us exactly the way we are. That's encouraging and refreshing for me to remember, and I hope I can help instill that truth in my own girls' hearts.

Even knowing how God views us, it can be hard to take the mean comments from others or even ourselves. I tried to explain to the girls to just let those mean words go, and not to dwell on them. But I think that's a lesson that's learned the hard way as well. Someone posted this video on Facebook fairly recently and I think it speaks volumes to the whole idea of just letting those things go.

I told the girls about it, but they haven't actually watched it yet. I think I'm going to show them this afternoon, and hopefully it can help them see how important it is to just let it go.