Beauty: Almost Perfect (But not quite!)

When my first daughter was 4 or 5, I'd be fixing her hair in front of the mirror, and I'd tell her what a pretty girl she was.  Right after, I'd look her in the eyes and say... "Honey, where are you the most beautiful?"  To which she'd reply in her cute little baby voice, "In my heart!"

Wouldn't it be awesome if we could all have that mentality?  Beauty is in the heart... not in the body... not in the hourglass, toned figures that are constantly staring out at us from the checkout counters at the store..

I'm a country girl, and I LOVE country music.  When I see Faith Hill's picture in the magazines, I'm instantly thinking how beautiful she is, often followed by a thought on how imperfect I am.  She's so thin, doesn't even look like she's a day over 25... 30 at most.  Her skin and body are... well.. perfect!

Then I saw this picture of her on my facebook feed.  Faith Hill truly IS a beautiful woman, but her body is not perfect.  I mean... whose is?  Okay... I'm sure you could start naming a few people here, but when you look at the average person out there, you don't find perfection.  It's like looking at a bouquet of flowers.  On their own, some flowers might be too dull or too yellow or too fluffy or too whatever.  But when you put them all together, they make a masterpiece... and the details simply don't matter.

So, what REALLY makes a person beautiful or ugly?  You see, I know the answer to this in my head.  I do.  And when I look at other people, I don't judge by those standards, because I really do know the truth of the matter.

The truth is... beauty starts in the heart.  In my opinion... those who have the most generous and least judgemental hearts are the people who shine the most and whose beauty is incomparable.  Some of the most beautiful people I know are not a size 4 or a size 6, but are actually more like between the sizes of 10 and 22.

Honestly?  It frustrates the hell out of me that our society has us so focused on size and weight that we can't see the forest for the trees.  It makes me angry that when we see these perfect magazine bodies and faces that some of our first thoughts are about how imperfect we are.  At least... that's where my mind goes.

I love that song by P!NK.  You know... the one about being perfect.  I belt that song out as I'm dancing in front of a mirror in my room (yeah... I'm crazy like that), and I sing it to my sisters and I sing it about my friends.  "You are perfect to me."  Don't change who you are.

They say that beauty is only skin deep... but they are soo wrong.  Beauty is much deeper than that.  Beauty is who you are... NOT what you look like.

Yes.  We all know this.  But do we REALLY know this?  I don't know about you, but as for me, I'm learning... it's taking time, but... I'm sloooowly learning that perfect isn't always, well... you know... perfect.