Am I Pitty?

 

So the school year beginning bell has rung for the Zimmers.  I'm going to come out first and say not one tear was shed by anyone but my daughter.  She had more then any one of us could have ever combined on a bad day.  I kept looking around, doing the actress tear up deal.....lets just say I can understand why Hollywood never called. I skeptically looked around for some comrades.  I think I spotted a few but never can be sure.

Something surreal happened that morning that trumped any of that.  It happened and it happened young.  My two year old daughter discovered a mirror that was laid against the wall to be hung in  her brothers room.  I witnessed the walk up. The grab of the dress on both sides.  The sway and the look up.  Then it happened.  "Am I pitty Mom?"

Double Take, holy crap....did she seriously already discover beauty was a question. I wanted to scream no not yet!!! I wanted to grab her chubby little bootiful face and kiss it hundred thirty times.  I wanted in that instant to provide her so much assurance that it would last a lifetimes of those hideous questions.

Does she secretly know the truth.  That she was headed to that place.  That "school" place where cruelness and vulnerability starts.  Where kids eventually will notice labels, pimples and all sorts of akward.  Will they make fun of her name, her smile as she squints those adorable eyes and bunches up that nose.  Will they notice that, my favorite thing about her and have her believe anything but. 

That place where she stands in the open praying someone befriends her.  Someone finds acceptance for her, someone wants to be her friend because of her heart and not her outward beauty.  Then it dawned on me how many parents are feeling the same thing.  As they hug and turn to walk away to silence, some peace.... do they have that little piece of empty in their stomachs?

I pray a lot, but I'm not sure I could ever pray more over something in my entire spiritual journey.  That God surrounds my kids with good loving nurture. That the scary place, is also filled with angels who surround them.  Waiting to bring out the strength and faith they need to withstand a cold and tarnished world.

God says in the good book by my bed, in fact every bed in my house in case of daily emergency or hiding....!   Hebrews 11:1 - 11:40 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  I have faith in his word, that no matter how akward, struggling, or denied at times they may be they are protected, even in my absence.  They find that place in their wee little souls that reminds them they are loved. They are accepted.  They are safe.

And we all say Amen....especially because school has begun and these angels can help a Mother out:)