November 14, 2014
My Sistas,
So I am a make-up foundation snob. Only Bare Minerals for me. And I’m a creature of habit. I only buy it at the Sephora department at JCPenny. I’ll buy cheap eyeshadow and lipstick, but I’m stuck on my Bare Minerals. I was at Sephora a while back to get my makeup and a strange Philosophy brand moisturizer label caught my eye. Hope in a Jar. SHUT UP! How could that be? How could hope be found in a jar right here at the JCP? Sephora didn’t even know what I’d been hoping for, but I could buy 2 ounces of it for $42. I couldn’t not buy it. And they wrapped it in red tissue paper for me. Took it home. Tried it. Just…meh. And really with a name like that, the results were highly over-promised. Next time at Sephora buying more make-up, the sales lady asked if I needed any moisturizer. When I told her I wasn’t happy with what I spent my money on last time, she asked what it was. Hope in a Jar. She said she had just the thing for me. A little serum called When Hope is Not Enough. GET OUT! How does Sephora read my mind? Plan A didn’t work, so I spent $43 on one ounce of Plan B. Meh.
I’ve got 3 daughters. I can’t afford to let them think they might actually be able to find their hope in a jar, even if they think can afford it, and especially if they can’t. My Grace is a conventional beauty, with unconventional purple hair. Slender and just curvy enough. Not perfect, but I’m uncomfortable being around her at the beach because I know the boys are watching her. My Emily is going to be the same way. My Lauren has the best of those who have gone before her. She has my laugh, Aunt Lala’s beauty mole, Aunt Bec’s thick hair, and Aunt Michelle’s height. But Lauren doesn’t look like Grace in a bikini. She’s 10 years old and wears size 10 shoes. She’s just a completely different body style. She will be 6 feet tall, easily. She doesn’t fit in fourth grade clothes, but what she fits in isn’t modest enough for a fourth grader.
Right now, My Lovely has more self confidence than she knows what to do with. And that hasn’t always been the case for this child who has so struggled with anxiety and doubt. My Lovely was always the one holding on so tightly to the handrails. Wouldn’t jump off the side of the pool. Couldn’t take off the training wheels. But now, she struts to home plate and smacks the ground with her bat like a Yankee. The girl who would never speak, now screams the chatter in the dugout. This wallflower asks with her own voice if she can help in the nursery at church every week. And now her anxiety comes from trying to decide which of her many friends to invite over this weekend.
Right now she doesn’t know that her size and shape might someday matter to others, and that it might matter to her, too. Right now she likes almost seeing eye to eye with Mommie. Right now she likes it when I tell her that God is growing her to do tall things. But will she hope to be something different in middle and high school when she is as tall as Gisele but isn’t built like a super model?
Confession of a bad mommie…Lauren and Emily love to sing All About That Bass. They dance their butts off to that song, and when we’re in the car, they’ve got their arms waving and they sing it loud. I caught Lauren singing in the shower one night and she didn’t know I was videoing her jam session (just audio, really). Don’t worry, when the bad words came, she just said “HUH,” and moved on even though she didn’t know I was there. I think Lauren actually could bring booty back, “that booty booty, that booty booty,” and right now she knows “every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top!”
But tell me, my Sistas, what jar or serum can I buy to keep My Lovely loving herself? What pill will prevent her from slipping back into that dark place of doubt? What exercise program can we start to help her not sink when she notices she doesn’t look like Abercrombie and Fitch? What happens when she realizes there’s a reason that song is about body shame?
Real time reality. Lauren is designing her avatar for the Xbox. I’ve never watched this process before and it has already taken 15 minutes. There must be 10,000 combinations and she can become anyone she wants. Her exact words…”I wanna be a certain girl.” Hope in an Xbox.
Those attacks from without and within will come to My Lovely… How long will all of you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. Selah. For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. (‭Psalm‬ ‭62‬:‭3-7‬ ESV).
But When she looks in the mirror, dimly now but soon face to face with God (1st Corinthians 13:12), I want her to see what God sees. His WOW! His It-Is-Very-Good creation. His precious Eve and Ruth and Hannah and Rachel and Lydia and Ester and Rebekah and Elizabeth and Gomer and my sweet Martha and Priscilla and Rahab and Mary. I want My Lovely to have the best of those who have gone before her. I want My Lovely to know that her hope and confidence comes as she stares unashamed into the face of her Bridegroom who sees her for all that she is. And I want for her what I so desperately needed years ago, to be so close to His face that when Lovely looks into His eyes, it’s her she sees reflected back. Oh to be in Your eyes!
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, (‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭18‬ ESV).
Hoping for the Treasure,
Sandie.