Tag Archives: you are enough

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-There's the cute boy with rolled up jean shorts and a mic. surrounded by four other smooth voices that know how to dance and how to make "Howdy Houston" sound way exciting. And the teenage girls with deafening screams holding up thick Marks-a lot lettered poster boards spelling out "Marry Me Niall" and "I love you Harry". Guess where I was Friday night? Hallie and I lucked into One Direction tickets. I felt as if I'd been transported back to 1988 to The New Kids on the block concert.  (NKOTB  was the boy band of my days.)

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It wasn't so long ago that I don't remember. Those boy bands; a combination of perfect faces and lyrics that make you feel like you're somebody special.

Yes.  New Kids on the block was the boy band of the late eighties and I had a favorite band member. "Mine" was Jordan Knight. He had perfect hair even while rocking it out on stage; hair more perfect than I and my spray bottle of Aussie ever dreamed of constructing with that permed mop of mine. My eighth grade year a friend of mine scored tickets to their concert in Dallas. And she invited me!

I remember seeing a black limousine with tinted windows as we arrived at the concert. I pressed my face close to the window just in case that was them, you know….THEM! I needed them, well Jordan, to be able to see me. If not in the parking lot or shuffling to our seats, I desperately wanted Jordan to see me standing in front of my seat, tiny speck that I'd be- three hundred yards away- amongst forty thousand other tiny specks, singing along to "The Right Stuff".

Because even though he had better hair than I did, and a smooth voice and all the right lines, and millions of fans…..if he knew me…… No. If he'd just see me, he'd know that I was someone special. He'd want to get to know me. He'd think I had nice hair too. And even my shy awkward mumblings and my tendency to avoid eye contact wouldn't keep him from seeing that I was beautiful. That I was special. I had that kind of hope that night.

That same kind of hope was palpable last night.

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I watched my daughter smile in a way that I seldom see. She was in the company of a multitude; bright smiles singing

You're insecure,
Don't know what for,
You're turning heads when you walk through the door,
Don't need make-up,
To cover up,
Being the way that you are is enough,...........
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,
You don't know,
Oh, oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,

 

There were so many voices. Deafening voices that drowned out the lyrics meant for them. Still, they listened hard; they listened beyond to the words they so longed to hear. They listened to the words meant for them.

But I tell you. I could have spent the entire night watching a 'somewhere around seventeen-year-old girl' two rows in front of me who graced her brown hot-rolled hair with a daisy crown of sorts. She danced. And she sang. And she danced and she sang some more like there was nobody else in that stadium but her, that rocking headband of hers, and the boy band. At one point, the lights flashed and then it went dark. The band vanished in smoke.  The screaming continued, but I do believe that her dear heart near stopped beating.

Minutes passed. Purposeless minutes. And then the boys were back. She melted. She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed the happy kind of sob that comes when everything makes sense. She shook. She dissolved. She was once again in their presence.

THAT was enough.

In their presence, she was enough.

Silly as it may seem, this is most every young girl's heart. It may have been winning the affections of  a boy's band member (who turned forty years old in the blink of an eye), or wanting to earn the affections of "this or that boy" at school, or just wanting to be accepted and loved by those around you

when you sing every line right,

or when you sing a different tune,

even when you feel life hasn't given you lines to sing.

School is here again. And I'm like "Daisy" (the headband girl) when the boys disappeared from the stage. I think something wonderful is over.

I've played with my girls. They've had a summer of protection where bad hair days are allowed. They've been loved and doted on by seldom seen family. They've watched age-old sitcoms on Netflix where every problem is solved in twenty-four minutes. I'm nervous for them. I know that's unchristian of me being worried and downright afraid,……but I am.

School is nothing like a boy band concert.

I know a girl's heart; the one that beats in this near four decade old heart and the one I believe beats in the heart of my eight year old, in the heart of my thirteen year old, and I believe beats in the heart of the girl you know too. We want to be loved. In the midst of the crowd, we want to feel both -not alone-, and like we're the only one. We want to be sang to; words that echo who are.

My prayer is that it will be more revealed to my girls, and to "almost had a heart attack 'Daisy" and to the other girls out there,  that they are loved and cherished.

I want them to know, not just in their head, but know in their heart, that they are wonderfully made.

I know there will be days when they dance and sing believing that.

But there will be other days.

Dark days when they feel abandoned. Days when it feels that even "The One Who Loves Them More Than Any Other" has disappeared; HE HAS NOT.  He is still there; not on some distant stage. I pray they will wait for and long for HIS company.  I pray that those days of sadness, their lonliness, their confusion about life and it's struggles are temporary. I pray that it's through these times that they will know him not from a distance. He is near.

I hope that they will really know, I hope YOU really know girls......

Boy bands, as awe inspiring as they are, come and go.

But

The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

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Boy band lovers.

Girls across the globe.

These words are meant for you.

 

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We look in the mirror not believing what we've become

As a child we'd thought we be someone

We sell our dreams and potential so we can

live the life that "they" call grand

-Words of a twelve-year-old scholar who wears too much eye makeup, my own Hallie Burden.  This is an excerpt from a poem she wrote the other night. Her words strike me with unfathomable force.  "This" is what I've been trying to tell her.....And "this" is what I'm still trying to tell myself.

With big brown eyes and wild hair, Hallie at age six, was a mustang in spirit. She even tried to convince us that she was turning into a horse because she was starting to notice hair on her legs and arms and she "thought her neck was growing longer".

Her dreams of the future didn't include the words "trained" or "tamed" or becoming the best work horse.Me and Mustang Hallie

But the "ideal" girl is what we all somehow become sold on.  Too often we unwittingly pack up our simple enjoyment of life along with the Barbies and white drawing paper.  We're told a grand life means trading in our individuality for a canned version of lady-ness.   We drive our SUV's at dizzying speed to make the next appointment or practice.  Our girls see us fret in front of the mirror when we view our slightly more plump figures or the small lines that have invited themselves underneath our tired eyes. Jills of all trades, we try to do it all, be it all, while the "us" God intended lies buried beneath the busy effort.

Just the other day, I looked at one of the pair of earrings I wear.  And I saw irony at its best.  The earrings are broken; both of them.  Of course they didn't start out that way.  A couple of weeks ago, at church I think, one of the silver scrolled circles went missing off of the earring in my right ear.  Instead of trying to find the missing piece, I had Jason take the complete earring and break it to match the other.  So now I have two broken earrings.  And I wear them just as if being broken is fine and dandy.

I see women who are worn out and defeated; but still accepting of the heavy load society lays squarely on their shoulders.  Already worn as I am, I tell myself that if they're ably and somewhat nobly spinning their physical and literal wheels, what am I but an incapable woman if I'm not doing the same.  It doesn't seem to matter if I'm not designed to cook like they are or sing like they do.  I don't seem to care if its purposeful and necessary to emulate their load.   The world needs one more PTA mom, right? Regardless of the plans God has for me, I'm attracted to the "all women invited/losers need not apply" Rat Race and Super Woman contest that I hate.

And all the while I root for young girls; that they will be who God created them to be.  I expect them to listen to the voices that tell them that they are enough. It's not all about making the grade, I expect my twelve and eight year old to know. I pray that my son chooses a girl that is all wrapped up in who God wants her to be. I want Hallie and Rylie to trust me when I tell them they don't need to be, or dress, or dance like someone else.

You're whole and loved as you, I tell them.  And I smile.... wearing my broken earrings.

I feel it in my tired old bones and my made up face.

This is the assigned moment for Him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.  John 3:30

Me, or "another her" isn't who my girls need to see.  I want them to see Him and the over the top, unique, and fabulous plan he has for me, and for them.