you are still that miracle!

     For Christmas my MIL always gets us girls, my sister in law and two nieces, a gift certificate to get pedis and have a lunch date. We've been doing this for a few years now and it really is  a day we all look forward to. We always have great conversation, catch up and reconnect. We got together just recently to cash in our certificates and spend our time together. What's great (or challenging) is that my mother in law has a way of getting us to talk and think about things that we don't normally stop and take the time to do. In fact, the last couple of years on this trip for pedis she brought along her "angel cards". Not gonna lie, I literally sweat even just thinking about these cards. However, I always seem to feel revived and refreshed after these prompted discussions, even if they are awkward and uncomfortable to think about out loud. 
    Anyway, this time around she got the cards out and we each had to pick a card without looking (ya gotta leave it up to fate to decide which card you need). What's great though, is that every card picked, even if it's not picked by you, seems in some way applicable to everyone. My card was "SHINE" and the words to spark the discussion were "Step into the light. You are a gift to the world". So the pressure was on to divulge on why fate chose that word for me that day. Honestly,  I felt that it truly was fate taking over and telling me that this whole leap of blogging faith and acting on what brings me joy is what I am supposed to be doing to "shine" right now. It gave me sort of a permission to keep on typing. That maybe my "shining" goes beyond the classroom and I could even have more than one passion to share with the world. 
     I was also impacted by the card my mother in law picked which was "WATCH" and although I can't remember what the exact prompting words were, what I took from the card was to watch for those miracles, the miracles that happen in the littlest ways and the greatest. As we got to talking about these miracles we began to merge this "WATCH" card along with my "SHINE" card and the discussion got deep. 
     You know how when babies are born you just look at them like they are the most miraculous being and that they were just born to sparkle and do something great? Well we were all once that beautiful miraculous baby. We were this perfect, precious being who was going to do amazing things. Somewhere along the way that image of perfection began to crumble away and not by anyone else but by ourselves. We don't ever look at ourselves in the same way that we are looked at when we are fresh and new. We never give ourselves the credit of being capable or worthy. We spend our time focused on what's not perfect and what needs to be better. 
    I always go back to the time when Nick and I first started dating and I was spending the day out on the boat with his family. His mom (now my beautiful mother in law) took a picture of us, and I was in a two-piece. I remember in that moment feeling so insecure. A few years later that picture was printed and hung on a board at the cottage and I remember looking at that picture thinking "DANG! I LOOKED GOOD!". Looking back I so wish that I would have loved my body then, that I wouldn't have felt insecure in my skin and that I would've just rocked it like I should've.  
     It's definitely not that things matter less to me now, I mean I am still super insecure and judgmental with myself on the daily, but when I read things like "life is too short to spend it at war with yourself" it really does make me stop and think about it more than I would've twenty years ago. Even now, I spend my time judging myself in a picture or in the mirror but I know that in another twenty years I am going to have those same wishful feelings, that I would've just loved myself more. 
     We are still that miracle baby, capable of doing wonderful and amazing things. We are still that package full of potential and awesomeness that the world is waiting to see. We are still that miracle who has done miraculous things in our short lived lives. We need to start looking at ourselves with love and acceptance and appreciation and I believe if we do that, girl, we'll shine, because we are a gift to the world! 

​**I dedicate this post to my gorgeous nieces Brynn and Brett who are twenty something bomb shells and I hope that when they look in a mirror or see themselves in a picture now and forever, they realize that they are worthy and beautiful and truly miraculous human beings.**

My little miracles, Rowan, now 7 & Grady, now 5.