Embrace the Magic

She pauses while eating to look up at me and smile.  Her shoulders go up, her eyes crinkle and her lips part in a pure joy.  She smiles with her whole body, this daughter of mine.  And my heart stops, undone by wonder.  She is magic.

And she hasn't even really done anything!  She is magic simply because she exists. The very breath of God resides in her body...and in mine.  I pause when this hits me.  I have struggled, like everyone else I'm sure, with my value, my worth as a person.  Struggled with owning the gifts God put in me, afraid to come across as arrogant or proud.  Afraid to fail.  Afraid, just afraid. 

 I went through counseling eight years ago.  There I shared how I always felt too big, like I took up more space than I was allotted.  I felt huge and bumbling and awkward when all I wanted was to blend in.  This feeling was physical and emotional and very strange because I'm not really a big person.  God and I have been working on bringing me to my appropriate size.  I giggle as I write that because it has been a trip!  I learned that somewhere along the way, humbleness was defined incorrectly.  God wants us to own what we are and what we are not.  And to walk confidently in Him.  There is magic in us.  There is value in us.  Simply because we exist.  He looks at us and says, "Beautiful."  Hmmm...He looks at me and says, "Beautiful."

When my husband says this to me, I blush and turn away, never sure how to respond.  But I speak that word consistently over my child.  "Beautiful."  Proclaimed in the morning, sung during the day, whispered at night.  She is beautiful because she is mine.  And, oh, we are His.  If I want my child, this girl who one day will be a woman, to embrace the magic God put in her, to embrace her beauty, I need to example this for her.  I don't want her to think that to be woman means to constantly put herself down.  To deflect compliments, to turn away from love.  To find something about herself to criticize.  To never be happy with the size of her thighs.  I need to redefine this for her- for me.  God has freed me from so much fear that it seems a pity not to dance in the beauty He sees; to not teach my daughter to dance freely in the beauty He has placed in her. 

"Dance, dance, dear Shulammite, Angel-Princess!
Dance and we'll feast our eyes on your grace!  Everyone wants to see the Shulammite dance
her victory dances of love and peace." (Song of Songs 6:13)