All The King's Princesses

There was a girl with a curl,

in the center of her forehead.

And when she was good,

she was very good,

but when she was bad,

she was horrid.


Liv and Destiny on Liv's 6th Birthday

(If you are reading this through a Facebook feed, please go to http://www.trulytammi.blogspot.com/ to see an adorable Princess Picture!)

Take that curl and multiply it exponentially and you've got my Liv.

Take that behavior and multiply it exponentially and you've got my Liv.

I must confess. I'm a little biased, but I think my daughter is physically beautiful. So do a lot of other people. "She's so pretty," is something she hears from all and sundry on a regular basis.

Liv may be beautiful, but her behavior - not so much. The same people who tell her she's beautiful are soon shocked by how bad she can be. Because of this, "Pretty is as pretty does," is something she hears from me often.

As much as I believe the cliche "Beauty is only skin deep" is true and want my daughter to be beautiful on the inside, I also want her to have a positive self image.

It breaks my heart when women like Destiny's mother, who has an amazing face, works hard to lose a significant amount of weight but says in front of our girls, "I'm still not as skinny as Ms. Tammi."

At the risk of offending some of you who know me, I have to pause and lovingly ask you to stop rolling your eyes and thinking, "Sure, that's easy for you to say. You're thin." Like I told one friend of mine who believes weight loss is the key to her happiness when she said those very words to me: "Yeah I'm thin. I'm also divorced and a single parent."

My point is, being thin or fitting into the mold of what our society considers attractive doesn't bring happiness, make our lives turn out the way we want, or fill the God shaped hole in all of us. Aren't the hollow lives of Hollywood's starlets proof of this?

I've known so many drop dead gorgeous women, of all shapes, sizes and colors, who have incredibly low self esteem. They refer to themselves as hot messes, fat cows and toads.

Precious daughters of The King, we are all Princesses who bear the likeness of our Father!

Be we rake thin, pleasantly plump, petite, statuesque, raven or tow headed, we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

I was so glad to see Dove launch "Campaign for Real Beauty". It celebrates the unique beauty each one of us possesses, no matter what we look like.

Last night when I picked my normally curly headed princess up from her father's visit, my heart sank when I saw that her stepmother of only a few months had taken it upon herself to straighten my daughter's hair. Audacity aside, I was devastated by the loss.

Not of Liv's curls (I think they were only flat ironed), but of her innocence.

My wasband and his wife have prematurely introduced my six-year-old little girl to the grown up women's world of not being happy with what God gave her. You all know what I mean because sadly many of us live there. Those with curly hair straighten it, those with straight hair perm it, those who are fair skinned go to the tanning/cancer beds and use bronzers to get darker, those who are darker avoid the sun and use skin bleachers to get lighter, and so on and so on.

Liv preened and strutted like Miss America last night until the Hair War commenced when I basically told her to enjoy it while it lasts. Next washing (How am I ever going to accomplish that?), she's going Au natural. My reasons for this are:

#1 - I'm a single mom up at the crack of dawn and don't have the time or desire to straighten.

#2 - Liv is young, and her hair is fragile. She doesn't need to develop dried out frizz this early on.
(She can fry her hair later if she so chooses, but I'm not doing it now).

#3 - I want her to embrace her God given beauty and her princess within. This means focusing more on developing what's on the inside (a godly character that reflects her heavenly Father) than what's on the outside. Spending inordinate amounts of time on her hair is contrary to this.

In waging the Hair War I think I have an uphill battle on my hands. As Liv travels between the two homes, she's going to get two different messages about her hair, her body, her clothes. Her looks. It's already happening with her glasses. She doesn't want to wear them following visits. I can't say for certain, but I have a feeling why that is.

I want Liv to want to look more like Jesus than her new stepsister (who is only older by a year, but is way older, doesn't wear glasses, and has straight hair).

My prayer for my daughter, for all of His daughters, is that we'd look in the mirror each day and be able to look past our imperfections (real or imagined), and past what others think we should look like, to see what The King sees: His precious, pretty princesses.

~Truly Tammi


Tell Me Truly

Many of us have had our self image damaged by abusive parents, partners or other toxic people. How do we overcome this to view ourselves as God does?