(Contributed by Leigh Ann Jewett. Read more about our writers here.)

Finding Beauty

One of the great things about raising kids is that you get a chance to look at the world through new eyes. Their wonder at the first snow fall, their joy at the sight of bubble wrap, their sheer terror when you turn on the vacuum - all force you to notice what's around you and see it in a new way.

My five year old, Charlie, has a knack for finding beauty in unusual places. When we read stories from her children's Bible, she always wants to revisit the creation story and repeats the words with me "God saw ______, and said that it was good." And in some ways she's taken that on as her motto, skipping through life and deeming everything good, good, good. (Sensory side note - this applies only to what she sees. A lot of what she has to taste, touch or smell she has deemed bad, bad, bad. We're working on it.)
Recent example - we were at the Dollar Store and she saw this plastic rat. She immediately wanted to get it for her dad, who she said loves tricks and bad jokes. She said he would love it because he could scare people with it.

  

Real Beauty

She also finds beauty in all types of people, which is right and true despite what outside influences and our own insecurities lead us to believe. I love watching her walk up to women in their sixties and tell them they look "like princesses." She doesn't refer to anyone as thin or fat, preferring to say that someone is a 'candy cane' or a 'cupcake' when describing them because "candy canes and cupcakes are both wonderful."

She has a lot to say about how beautiful I am, which I am careful to accept with gratitude and without any qualifications or corrections. I have never thought of myself as beautiful. No low self-esteem here, I have plenty of great qualities. But I grew up chubby, with bad skin, epically messed up teeth, glasses, frequent cold sores, and a unibrow. So, so much character was built, but being beautiful was never part of my identity. But the beauty Charlie sees in all things is beyond appearance, and I'm not going to tell her she is wrong about me or any other lovely person or thing. Because she isn't wrong. I'm the one who needed the new perspective. God made it and it is good, good, good.