This week we’ve been talking about how to weed out the lie that you are not beautiful. We’ve been talking about the surprising place that ugly sometimes comes from. And we agreed to go on a beauty hunt together this week.
To write down beauty everywhere we found it in ourselves– laundry folded in love, beds made, dinners cooked, lattes picked up for the husband at Starbucks. The red high heels, the swimsuit that shows off the wonder that your body has delivered, the family legacy of freckles. Even the tired eyes from being up all night with sick kids.
We agreed to write it down – write down the only definition of beauty that matters:
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14.
Want to take five minutes with me and share what you found? Want to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not. Here’s how we do it:
1. Write for 5 minutes flat with no editing, tweaking or self critiquing.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in {you can grab the button code in my right side bar}
3. Go and tell the person who linked up before you what their words meant to you. Every writer longs to feel heard.
OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes for the prompt:
Beauty…
It’s hard to find a photo with the kids that has me in it. I’m all about pointing the lens in their direction and hiding behind the ability to lighten, tighten, sharpen the frame and the focus. When did I stop considering myself photo-worthy? Because, after all, when I hunt for beauty it is waiting everywhere for me. That nearly six-year-old boy that swoons when I get up in the morning, whether dressed for church or any other day, and declares with all the sincere melodrama of youth, “Mama, you are so beoootiful!”
It is there in the husband who laughs off guard at my off kilter sense of humor that’s stuck around since we first met. It’s there in my attempts to make new chicken dishes and there in my even greater attempts to get the kids to eat them.
Beauty is hiding in the bathroom when I get down on hands and knees to clean the floor and locked in the hot, hot car when I open doors and drive every day to pick up kids with smiles and plans for the afternoon.
Beauty lingers all around me at 2am when I’m up with my baby girl beauty, feeding, soothing, rocking countless, endless, and constantly interrupted night time shifts. The more haggered I feel in the morning, the more beautiful I know my soul is becoming.
This aching for service for this family. This fighting down frustration and fighting back chaos. This making time in the midst to set out on the messy back deck with Peter to just reconnect. This is the greatest finding of beauty in the midst of my every day polaroids.
My mirror is no longer the boss of me. I now tell it what to see.
STOP.
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And that was a BEAUTIFUL ending sentence! And what a beautiful photo!
amen to that!
great inspiriting !
thank you “))
“i tell it what to see.” YES, indeed. lovely:)
That was a wonderful post! Funny how different thoughts pour out of us in 5 minutes. Thanks for letting us link up with you!
There is definitely beauty is caring for our family.
Bless you!
Beth
“The more haggered I feel in the morning, the more beautiful I know my soul is becoming.” Yes! And isn’t that truth exactly what allows us to wake up at 2am night after night after night?! Thank you Lord for blessings in the midst of trials.
Oh sad day! Apparently my post was linked twice. Feel free to delete one of them. Sorry! :)
But regarding today’s subject… it is, indeed, amazing how we can find beauty in places and things we never thought could be inspiring.
Sometimes, we find beauty in people we thought were really ugly inside, which I think it’s an even bigger surprise.
Oooh, I love this: “The more haggered I feel in the morning, the more beautiful I know my soul is becoming.” So true. Thank you for hosting us each week.
Mmmm, I love your line about the more haggered you feel, the more beautiful your soul is becoming. I am the mom of 4, with my youngest at 6 months, still not sleeping through the night. I’ve had my days of being haggered, but wouldn’t change this time. Truly, it is a gift of God to be depended on by a baby. It does help us grow in grace and share God’s love. You’ve had wonderful thoughts of beauty this week. Thanks for encouraging us all to look beyond.
This has been my favorite prompt so far. All I could think of was “beauty in this broken thing”. I really want to love myself the way Christ loves me. He made me :).
The beauty of motherhood… so inspiring. :-)
Well you are just beautiful! And all the love you weave into words for us to enjoy, to be encouraged and inspired by, thank you so much, it does make a difference!
When I first saw the word for this week I thought to myself, well I’m out. I had a rough day yesterday and wanted nothing to do with beauty! However, God had other plans, I not only wrote about it, I have spent the morning being blessed by what everyone else has written. Bad attitude gone! Thanks!
Oh how wonderful!! That makes me so so happy to hear :)
This reminds me of the old song that says, “He makes all things beautiful in His time.” What you’re describing is a beauty that isn’t just about the way a face or a body looks right now, but a beauty that reaches really far into the future. It’s the beauty of an investment into others, a sacrifice of self, the beauty of small choices now that in 20 years or 50 years will be even more radiantly lovely–the beauty of love in action.
It’s exactly what I needed to remember after this week–that when I’ve felt my most unlovely, after the frantic-ness of a flood disaster and hours of cleanup at my in-laws’ while they’re out of town, and the bone-weariness that’s followed, I am not the draggled, soggy, puffy-eyed mess that I see in the mirror. I’m love in action, and I look pretty darn good.
Sorry for the double link up! The Linky tool thing isn’t playing nice with me lately. I enjoyed joining this challenge today. Will come back for more 5-minute Fridays. ;)
Great post, Hope. I particularly liked the bit about standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves, and here’s mine:
http://childrencount.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/5-minute-friday-beauty/
Hi I love the post! I am a new FB follower. Please check out my blog at http://jessycaspage.blogspot.com/
Have a great weekend!
“My mirror is no longer the boss of me. I now tell it what to see.” Thank you for that sentence alone!!!
Absolutely beoootiful. This post. You.
Good for you. That is exactly what beauty is. When we learn not to look at the outside and check out the heart – then we see real beauty. When we can go to the door in pajamas , or when our hair isn’t perfect – when the worker comes.
I have seen the way some young people don’t worry about what type of pictures you take of them. Eating a hamburg with a mouthful – they think that is funny… They are open and honest about just being them.
Great thoughts. Thanks.
Jan
Oh, Lisa-Jo…I really wish I could hug your neck right now. You truly are a beautiful person…your heart, your smile, your willingness to be real and help the rest of us to be the same.
Love you sister I’ve never hugged. LeeBird
“This mirror is no longer the boss of me. I now tell it what to see”. I love this!
I love it! I’m starting to “tell the mirror what to see” right along w/ you! Thank you for inspiration lovely lady!
Yeah, I’m doing my best to catch up! Here’s another tardy entry:
http://kristawork.blogspot.com/2011/08/five-minute-friday-beauty.html
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