A letter to my daughter...

I had some thoughts on my mind today, so I just began to type it out. I thought I would share what I came up....

A letter to my daughter... (in my own words yet inspired by other women)

In which I promise not to call myself fat...

Dearest Laila,

I am raising you in a world that thinks you're only as good as you look. And you're being raised by a woman who is still overcoming these lies herself.

I am on the look out for small ways to spare you from perhaps a few of the battles that seem to strangle and engulf so many of us women. Like the ones who starve or completely drain their bodies with over-exercising and with little nutrition to punish themselves. Like the ones who repeatedly apologize to their husbands for a body marked by childbirth. The ones that are terrified of aging. Or like the ones ball and chained to a scale.

I will talk and teach and train you. I will teach by example what it means to be healthy, what it means to be beautiful. I will lead the resistance of these lies in our home by living out a better truth. You will know you are a daughter of a King.

I will not criticize the women around me, how they look and how they live, casting uncharitable words like stones.

I'll wear a bathing suit and get my hair wet.

I will easily change my clothes in front of your Dad, proud of my stretch marks that brought you into the world.

I will eat dessert and laugh my way to deeper smile lines.

I will celebrate your own beauty, and do my best to praise your mind, your heart, your motives.

I will not let any words criticizing my body cross my lips - especially in front of you!

I will teach you that physical activity is something to be enjoyed.

I will teach that your body is a gift, something to be kept healthy and strong, clean and pure.

I will celebrate beauty where I find it. Handcrafted by a generous God, found upon millions of faces throughout the world, across a large diversity of cultures, colors and heritages.

I will tell stories of women.

I will surround you in a community of women who are smart and strong, crazy and fun, gentle and kind, faithful and compassionate. Women who love you. You will see that is is what beautiful is. That love and kindness, that faith and purity are the most beautiful things you can ever put on.

Te amo mi amor!