Our Little Girls' Images

Is that picture not powerful?  I saw this on Facebook one day a couple weeks ago and I really felt the need to share it.  

Remember what you say to her she listens.. She thinks you are beautiful, Stop telling her you are on a diet.. She listens when you say you are fat, ugly or when things are wrong.. as you cry, step on the scale and speak badly about yourself..

I used to be the worlds WORST about this. Hearing Lillian one day tell me she was fat in a pair of leggings broke my heart, but made me re-evaluate how I talk.. I remember being a small girl watching my mother put on make up.. I remember how it even smelt.  As she got her foundation out of a glass round jar with a golden lid.. as she smoothed it over her face I didn't know why she was doing it, all I knew is I wanted to be just like her, I wanted to wear make up and I wanted to apply it as gracefully as she did.. I was in awe of her beauty.

Lillian is in awe of mine.. my flaws, my imperfections.. she just sees her mom, how beautiful I look when I wear my hair in a bump and tells me why we should both wear skirts that day because we could be twins.. How wonderful I smell and if she can have a dab of my perfume...

Because in her eyes.. she will one day remember how I smell.. what I looked like when she watches me put on my make up and how I taught her how to put on lipgloss..

Not the fat stomach, the stretchmarks that I see or how awful I feel after a "cheat day" or a day I missed at the gym.

I have always tried so hard to make sure I do not talk about myself or my "diet" in front of the kids.... especially Heidi.  She knows I did paleo, but she doesn't know I was doing it to "lose weight", but only to eat healthier.  I know how sensitive self images are.  I was that way as a child.  I was made fun of in school for having a "pig nose" and my chicken pox scars on my face were "bb gun wounds" according to my class mates.  I was very chunky in middle school.  I have always loved to eat.  Everyone in my life knows that.  Food is a struggle for me.  But being chunky in school and seeing the other girls not so chunky made me want to be skinny.  Summer of my 8th grade year I ate only 1 orange a day and drank a sprite.  I would sit at dinner with my family and nibble on my food because I didn't want them to know what I was doing.  BUT I lost that "baby fat" and got skinny for high school AND every day since then has been a struggle for me.

I am determined for that not to be for my girls.  They may struggle with weight, but I don't ever want them to feel un-pretty in their skin.  They are beautiful inside and out and I always want them to know and feel that.  BUT if they see me on a daily basis worried about myself, then what image does that leave them?  They know that I workout every morning, but that is okay.  They need to know that being healthy is being beautiful.

 The World we live in today is just as cruel as it always has been.  Let's not let our children think they are anything less than beautiful.  They are PERFECT in God's eyes and ours.  He makes no mistakes.