To my beautiful little girl, Kaia
Listen close, because this is something every girl should know. This is something that so few of us make it into adulthood really believing. But I tell you, my lovely princess, you are heart wrenchingly beautiful. I tell you every day because you need to know this in your core. You are beautiful because of the image you bear. You are beautiful because your character and spirit shine through your gorgeous brown eyes. You are beautiful because your small pink lips speak words of kindness and life and patience.
You are beautiful because God made you so both internally and externally. From the first time I sank my nose to your head, still soft pink with the silkiest dusting of hair and inhaled your baby scent, I was in awe. I tucked you softly to my chest and held your chubby body, curved round and still folded like a ball, while you nursed with pink puckered lips. I whispered to you how beautiful you are. I whispered that I would always love you.
You are beautiful because you were created with His perfect plan, knit together in my stretch-marked tummy by the hands of one who doesn’t ever make mistakes.
Always remember this truth. When the world tells you that you need to be skinnier, sexier, more. When the world tells you that you are not enough, you are lacking, you are deficient, look to the one who created you and know that these lies offer only counterfeits of true beauty. That what this world offers is vanity and a feasting of self. But no, you are beautiful, you always have been and you always will be. You are infinitely valuable.
I wish we lived in a world where I didn’t have to mention these things until you were much older but they are already coming at you. You are already facing these lies, even at 7. Even as I work to insulate you from these influences, it’s everywhere. It’s on the magazine covers as we grocery shop, it’s in other girls minds, it’s even in the church. My only consolation is that God offers you humility, modesty, purity, wisdom, and grace and these things make a woman beautiful. As you grow each year, I will teach you more about these ideals even as I pray to fully embrace and understand them myself. For now, these are the things I feel I must share.
Be a girl who values modesty. Modesty is not just about knee-length skirts or the avoidance of low-cut tops. Modesty is born in the heart. This is another thing I wish I could delay writing to you about but so many girls grow up with no sense of modesty and it pains me to see them in the church with hearts that love God but with clothes that love themselves and the world. We disguise immodesty with fashion, or cute, or stylish. We used the world as our compass to navigate what we should and shouldn’t wear.
I wish sometimes I could keep you seven and dress you myself all your days. I wish I could protect you from all temptation, and install a 50 ft. high electric fence around you to keep boys away but you are already rummaging through your closet and developing your own sense of style. I am reconciled to the fact that you will continue to grow into a woman and the only fence to keep you safe will be my petition of prayers, and that fence can be breached, for I am not guaranteed of your safety nor your salvation, although I long for those as only a mother can.
But I will tell you this and I hope it sinks in, because it’s coming at you, my love. If someday, you find that you are trying to be hot or sexy, you are off course. These are terms which manifest in the flaunting of something that isn’t yours to begin with. God created your body and until you marry, it is His alone. Hot or sexy are terms that inspire lust, covetousness, and consumption of this world’s ideals.
Your body is a temple of the Most High God. Adorn it with respect manifested in the way you dress and carry yourself but mostly in the desire to glorify Him with it. Your body is beautiful and precious and modesty is the way we honor its maker and our fellow brothers in Christ.
Don’t be the hot girl, with the title bestowed by this world, be a girl who is beautiful with your identity bestowed by God. Because in God, you are always beautiful.
Join me next Monday for the final Letters to My Daughter: On Being Humble
I linked up over at
Hello, I’m here from Ann’s blog. Just love your Letters To My Daughter series!! Are there only 3 of them or more? I’d love to do this for my daughters and granddaughters. I think I read the being beautiful was the final letter…I’d encourage you to keep writing maybe through her teenage years or until she’s married or has her own daughter/son. I’ve spent years working on a Blessing Book for my youngest daughter. She is now 18 but I started when she was 13. Every year on her birthday I ask ladies that know her write Blessing Letters to her that tell about things in their lives that have blessed them and about their salvation. Being homeschoolers we were always meeting new families and my daughter is so easy to get attached to women and usually their younger daughters. Over the years she’s collected quite a few letters. Anyway, just wanted to share that with you.
Nancy recently posted..The Smallest Member Is Not The Least
Thanks for visiting here Nancy, There is one more letter in this series to my daughter for her birthday this year, that I’ll post on Monday, so three total. I do letters to my children on each of their birthdays and then throughout the year when something just must be said. They’ll all be in the love letters category of my blog. I just started blogging in January so this is the first year they will be online. I love your idea for a blessing book. What a lovely idea and such a beautiful gift to give her. Thank you for sharing, I’m sure your daughter is thrilled to be able to look through it and see the Godly mentors He’s brought into her life and the wisdom in their words.
JUST love this post. Most excellent. I bookmarked your site so I can visit and read more of your posts. I have that passion for my own daughter too.
Thanks Karen, I’m so glad to have you and I hope you visit again soon. My last letter to Kaia for this birthday will be posted on Monday so stop back by. Your daughter is no doubt blessed having you love her that way.
Oh, this is absolutely incredible! Thank you so, so much for sharing this beautiful letter! So many women today – both young and old – truly need to hear these words over and over and over again. I’m glad to see that someone is writing them.
Thanks Mary, I’m glad to have you as a reader.
Alia,
What a great post. What great, true, needful words! I, too, have a daughter and I am serious…. so serious about her learning the truths you talked about here. I recently read a book, Who Calls Me Beautiful by Regina Franklin… and I HIGHLY recommend it. I really think every woman should read it, not only for herself but also for all the young girls and women she will influence in her life. I am just starting to figure out those truths myself…. and I grieve at the years I lost believing anything different. I don’t want that for my daughter, yet… as you pointed out, they are already inundated with all this garbage at such a young age and even from the church!! In fact, some of the worst *offenders* come from the church and even some of its *well intentioned* teachings…. this of course would be an area where the Church and the Bible and Jesus have parted ways…. unfortunately, that happens sometimes. But it’s up to us to correct and re-direct those teachings starting with our very own and moving outward from there.
Good for you, Alia, that you are bothering with that very noble, life-giving task.
Blessings,
Kara
Kara, I haven’t read that book, I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for visiting here and for your passion for your own daughter to know she is beautiful in God’s eyes. When we parent intentionally about this topic, I pray we can make a real difference in how this next generation of women sees themselves in light of God’s word.
How beautiful! I haven’t had a lot of time to read lately. I can’t wait to see the rest of the letters.
Maggie S. recently posted..Spring Break ’12
Hey there friend, I know it’s hard to keep up with reading other blogs while writing your own. Believe me, I get it. So nice to have you drop in though. Hope you’re enjoying your break.
Alia, I love this letter. How precious and tender you are in explaining the love of the Father for your daughter. This is a treasure for her to read and read and read again as she grows.
Thanks Jane, Great to have you back here. Thanks for dropping in.
“When the world tells you that you are not enough, you are lacking, you are deficient, look to the one who created you and know that these lies offer only counterfeits of true beauty”
yes to this. i share your heart….i long for my daughter to hear this message and both her dad and I pour love into her and the importance of beauty within. i pray she knows. i pray she clings to our words.
Thanks Melissa, I know it’s so hard to see our girls face this world and we want so much for them to know how beautiful they are. Keep telling her your love. She is blessed to have a momma who loves her that way.
I’ve had this post open since you posted it, but am just now commenting!
This is beautiful, Alia. You are BEAUTIFUL and so is your sweet girl. My heart has spoken these words so many times. You put it all together perfectly and wonderfully.
Love you!
Megan, hello friend, I’m so glad you dropped in. You and Aliza Joy are both beautiful as well. I am blessed by you and your kind words, they mean a ton coming from someone whose writing I respect so much. Love you too!
Alia, Can I just tell you how much I love this series! I haven’t stopped to comment yet because I don’t like leaving them on my phone & I keep getting interrupted
So beautifully written and just what I seem to be praying for my daughter.
Thank you for sharing & I’m so glad you are blogging!!!! (yes, extra ! points in comments too
Have a great weekend!
Virginia recently posted..Going Green with the Roots of Jealousy
Virginia, Thanks so much sweet friend. I really appreciate you commenting and for your encouragement. I hate commenting on my phone too, I always end up with a ton of typos and sound like a moron. I am glad so many moms can relate to these desires for our daughters. Maybe if we all teach our girls these things, we can change their world.
I absolutly loved this post. It actually reminded me of a post I wrote about my own daughter awhile back (http://inthewarmholdofyourlovingmind.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-pray-that-shell-be-ordinary.html). I’ll be adding you to my Reader!
Sarah Denley recently posted..On Learning to Have a Friend and Be a Friend
Thanks Sarah, I am so glad to have you as a reader.
Alia,
This is a beautiful post. I have one daughter I raised and some days between seven and seventeen, it didn’t seem like we would make it. But God’s has been faithful. I long for days when I could hold her just one more time. But now I help her process her call to full time mission work as a college junior whose heart is with orphans and immigrants both here and overseas. Thanks for this post. I penned one on Raising girls http://brendayoder.com/2012/10/10/on-raising-girls/ recently, thankful for things done well, and longing to do a few things different. Thanks for stopping by my site.
this is beautiful. what a loving mama you are.
What a beautiful post! And what a BEAUTIFUL girl (both the little one and the author!). I know this because God doesn’t make anything that isn’t beautiful in His eyes.
I can’t wait to be back and read more.
Rebecca Rejoices at SheShares.org recently posted..7 Ways to Stop Gossip: Way #4 – Walk Out