Guest Post: Amanda Barbie

Raising Beauty

            My daughter is absolutely the most beautiful creature I have ever beheld. When she smiles, when she laughs, she literally takes my breath away. When I look at her, I see love. I see God’s love, and it overwhelms me like a tidal wave of goodness. She has always been a shining light, full of confidence and remarkable boldness.

            Over this last school year, that light began to dim. It wasn’t very noticeable at first, but over time reached the point of undeniability…I know growing up is hard. I also know I can’t always shelter her from those difficult things. Even though she would talk with me, tell me about what goes on in her life, the light kept dimming. Even though I’d give her the best advice that I could and would pray with her and over her, still the light kept dimming.

            It was hard to see it for what it was for a very long time. There were the normal social conflicts with other kids at school. Not everybody is going to be nice to her. Not everybody is going to be her friend. These things happen, to all of us. Sometimes in life, people are just plain mean. This is something we all learn at one point or another.

            She had started wearing dresses more and more. When she’d come home from school, she would immediately change out of her school uniform and into the prettiest, frilliest, girliest dress she could find in her closet. She began showing interest in high heels and make-up. I didn’t really think much of it. Those interests are normal for her age, and she has always been very self-expressive. I simply thought this was a reaction to being made to wear the same boring and plain uniform dresses day in and day out, that it was her way of saying, “You can’t make me conform!” She is, after all, my daughter…

            Then one day she told me something, and suddenly, it all made sense. “Some of the kids call me ugly”, she said…Those words cut me deep. They cut me like nothing had ever cut me before. Ugly. It was just one word. Just one word and it had gotten into her. Somehow, it had gotten in past all of those other words, those words of life, those words of goodness and love and beauty I speak over her day in and day out. “Ugly”- how had that one word gotten in? How??

            The pain of seeing that word’s affect on this beautiful, precious and remarkable child, MY CHILD, MY LOVE, MY LIGHT…the pain washed over my heart and a fierceness was released. With that fierceness tried to come anger. Anger and hate for those who had spoken this to my child, hurt my child this way, tried to overcome me, tried to get in. They tried hard, but they couldn’t get in!

            Instead, I was gently reminded of who was in me. Holy Spirit lives in me, and because He is in me, those things that are not of Him cannot get in. The can get on me, but not in me. They don’t have the power to stay on me either. I just have to remember to see it the way He sees. The way He sees is this, “My children are absolutely the most beautiful creatures I have ever beheld. When they smile, when they laugh, they literally take my breath away. When I look at them, I see Love. I see My Love, and it overwhelms Me like a tidal wave of Goodness.”

            He has put His Love in us, and He calls us beautiful. Not just some of us. ALL OF US. So, I was left with a choice to make. Choose to let the anger and the hate rest on me, giving it a grip to hold onto and cover that Goodness and Light of God inside me, or choose instead to see those children who had hurt my child as my Papa God sees them.

I choose to love them, to see their beauty through His eyes, to pray over them words of life, words of power, words of healing and blessing and love. I choose to raise beauty from within them. To raise it up out of them and by doing so, raise it from myself as well.

That word “ugly” never got into my daughter, because God lives in her! And as I show her what it really looks like to love those who have hurt you, that word will be forever washed away from her. It cannot stay on her. It has no right to her. And she will learn to raise the beauty inside herself with each prayer and word of love and healing she speaks over those who speak harm over her.

This is the fierceness of God’s Love for us that we not be content to keep God’s Love inside of us, but with that Love, we are to reach out into that darkness and pull others out. We are to raise them from darkness into light. Raise the beauty and the love of God within them and by doing so show them what it is to see themselves as God sees them. Beautiful. Breath-taking. Loved…His children. His creation. HIS.

-Amanda Barbie