Wrangler Dani

We went to Santa Barbara this weekend for a getaway, and my husband spoiled me with a new top. My hair is curly but actually controlled, I’m wearing earrings and my new top, and I feel pretty, happy and alive. I love this feeling, and I wonder sometimes why I let it slip away. Why don’t I strive more for beauty, in my home and life and self?

Most of the time, I’m just lazy. I slip out of pretty because I don’t use my God-given wisdom and grace. Sure, I struggle with flab, with acne (my face still thinks I’m 13) with the normal woes of being a woman in the competitive culture of the OC.

But I too often give in when I should fight for Beauty. It is a struggle. Sometimes I even gloss over this, our undeniably beautiful view from the park below our house.

But there is beauty in other things, too, that is equally worth fighting for. There is beauty in smiles and laughter, in friendship, in knowing one another deeply. There is beauty in being comfortable with where I am and how I look, even, with not constantly questioning my body type or comparing myself to other women (those people with amazing things called “hips” how I envy you!).

See? I did it again. It’s so prevalent, so easy to slip away from an attitude of thankfulness and into strife about how I wish I was. The truth is, I’m not supermodel, but I’m working to embrace the things I can be. I want to see beauty in everything – in Adam’s and my inside-jokes, in our church-family, in our “real” families, in our friends and our sunshiney days and our days of fog and bluster. In Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert asserts that true beauty is the only thing that is incorruptable, and I think I agree with her.

Today, I’m going to embrace the beauty in all of God’s creation, including me.